| Abstrakt: |
This article aims at bringing into relief some typical mistakes made by different Europeans when they translate words in English correspondence. This collection is grouped according to whether the key word is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition or it belongs to the mixed department. The mistakes are determined by different causes. The terms are very frequently translated literally, the correct English expressions being different. Some English words can be more restricted in meaning than the seemingly similar ones in the other European languages. A typical mistake made by speakers of Romance languages is when they ignore that English provides two different words when it comes to physical movement and time and they use the two words in a wrong way. Other mistakes made by foreigners are connected with some abbreviations. They do not exist in English or they do not save more than two letters and therefore, they become useless. In other situations, an abbreviation in English means something else than the abbreviation in another European language and the mistake can obviously cause embarrassment or giggles. As for the mistakes belonging to the mixed department, they are either related to grammar or semantics. Foreigners often make the mistake of using in plural some phrases which must have the verb in the singular even if the respective phrases introduce more than one item. Much attention should be paid by foreigners while using some phrases which imply certainty in some European languages, whereas their English equivalents render uncertainty and vagueness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
