8 common English mistakes Israelis make.
I made Aliya over 30 years ago, and even though I had spoken some Hebrew at home growing up, my native language has always been English. Hebrew is a difficult language to learn. It’s a downright backward language the reads right-to-left. To this day, I don’t know any formal rules of grammar. I never learned them in school. If I get anything right, it’s just how I picked it up. To this day, there are many things I’ll get wrong if I just let them flow without thinking about it. Exchanging א and ע. Exchanging ק and כ. Switching masculine and feminine (damn, is it אחד or אחת). But one thing I can attest to. Israelis everywhere LOVE to correct you. It’s a question of both national pride, and an honest desire to help the Oleh blend into Israeli society. There were times I could not utter a full sentence without someone correcting me.
It’s payback time!
In general, the level of English in Israel is pretty good. English is taught in school from quite an early age (although, as I’ve seen, not always by qualified teachers), and movies and TV programs in English are not dubbed (but rather subtitled). And then, Israelis love to travel. As a result, even if you’re a D student, there’s a fair chance you’ll speak some English. And of course, those of you with a gift for languages, or those who have spent significant time abroad can display a truly impressive command of the language.
Nevertheless, there are a number of mistakes that I’ve seen or heard over and over again. And that’s what this post is all about. Below are some mistakes that make me cringe every time I hear them.
So if you really want to learn something, keep reading. Otherwise you can skip to the end for a neat riddle that I saw back in my school days in Hong Kong.
Caveat: I don’t claim to be an authority on English grammar. Like you, I can speak my language, but can’t always explain the reason why something is said one way or another. I just know what I know.
It's mean/It's look like
For example, “It's look like traffic is bad. It's mean I will be late”
This is definitely one of the most common mistakes Israelis make when speaking English. It almost seems like teachers learn this mistake, and then propagate it through the generations.
The correct way to say this is: It means/It looks like
“It looks like traffic is bad. It means I will be late.”
To help you remember this and get it right every time, simply replace ‘It’ with ‘He’.
He looks like traffic is bad/He means I will be late. While the sentence might not really make sense, it will remind you of the correct usage of “It”.
Respond vs. Response
I’ve seen many emails starting with “Thank you for your respond”. And others ending with “Please response quickly”.
This is a simple confusion between the noun and the verb.
Respond is the verb.
Response is the noun.
Maybe to avoid confusion we should just invent the form Respondse (pronounced re-sponge) which acts as both a noun or a verb depending on the context.
So before we start to redefine the English language…
“Thank you for your response. I will respond quickly.”
Advise vs. Advice
This is very similar to previous example.
Advise is a verb.
Advice is the noun.
Should we also have advisce (pronounced advishe) ?
“Thank you for your advice. I will advise my colleagues to do the same.”Complimentary vs. Complementary
These two words are very similar in how they’re spelled, but the following example shows how a single letter can mean a world of difference.
I was recently at a Meetup, where a VP Sales presented about developing partnerships in order to increase global sales. One of his slides showed the company’s main product, and then there was a big title showing the other complimentary products.
Imagine a customer sitting through this presentation thinking he was going to get a lot of stuff for free.
Customer vs. Costumer
This one is easy.
A customer is what we all want. It’s someone who has paid for our products or services.
An easy way to remember this difference is by thinking of the word “customize”. It has the same root, because it means doing something specially suited for your customer.
Constrains vs. Constraints
There are two causes for this error. One is because the ‘t’ at the end of constraint, while not really silent, is easy to miss in day-to-day speech. The other is simply a confusion between the verb “constrain” and the noun “constraint” (like advise and advice, or respond and response).
From the context of texts I have seen, people usually mean constraints to a system.
For example, “The system has a few constraints which we must work around.”
Complaint vs. Compliant
These two very similar words are completely different.
A complaint is something you will get if your customers are not happy.
Compliant is what you must be if you want your product to be certified by a standards body, or if it must meet a set of rules.
If your product is not compliant to industry standards, you will get many complaints from your customers.
Trial vs. Trail
I’ve seen companies offering free trails.
Well guess what! Trails are usually free. I know of one or two trails in New Zealand which you have to pay to trek over, but otherwise, it’s no surprise that they’re free.
So you guessed it. What you want to offer is a free trial. An easy way to remember this is that free trials usually encompass the widest set of functionality available in a product. You want your potential customer to “try all” features with a 30-day free trial.
And here’s the promised riddle.
Can you think of an English sentence that correctly uses the word “and” 5 times in a row?
