研究ノート

Common English Errors: Causes and Corrections
Marie Kjeldgaard
要

旨

日本人の英語学習者には，特有のエラーがある。このようなエラーの原
因は生徒の不注意からではなく，二つの言語に基本的な違いがあることによるものであろう。授業中に頻出したエラーを分析したところ，日本語にはない英語の文法と単語のニュアンスなどが主な原因となることがわ
かってきた。他にも，日本語からの直訳や和製英語などもエラーの原因と考えられ，英語教師は生徒のエラーの原因を理解して，適切な訂正を施すべきであろう。
Keywords: common errors（特有のエラー），English（英語），error correction（エラー訂正），Japanese（日本語），language differences（言語の違い），loanwords（和製英語），translation（翻訳）Abstract

Certain kinds of errors are often made by Japanese students ofEnglish. These common errors occur not because of students’ inattention,
but because of fundamental differences in the way the two languages are
structured. An analysis of common errors collected from students’classroom work over a period of several years showed that these errors
were overwhelmingly the result of grammatical forms and distinctions
between words that are not present in Japanese. Other factors included the
direct translation of Japanese phrases into English and the use of English
loanwords where the meaning has shifted upon addition to the Japaneselexicon. An understanding of the reasons behind the errors students makecan help teachers choose appropriate and effective responses andcorrection methods.

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Introduction
An observant instructor will notice that different Japanese students will often makesimilar errors when speaking or writing in English. This is due not to a lack of care or
intelligence on the students’ part, but to underlying differences between Japanese andEnglish. Although instructors are often aware of these repeated errors, without knowledgeof the reasoning behind them it can be difﬁcult to help students correct them.
While a variety of books are available to explain common English errors for students,
there is a lack of similar material aimed at teachers. The best of the student books containclear and thorough explanations for a variety of grammar points as well as exercises orworkbooks to allow for practice of the relevant material. The book An A-Z of Common
English Errors for Japanese Learners by Barker (2010) contains generally good
explanations, abundant examples, and an extensive list of material. It is a useful reference
for students or teachers, although the exercise section is a bit basic. Webb (2006) has also
compiled an extensive list of common errors; although his explanations are a bit
undeveloped, consisting mainly of examples, the associated workbook allows for extra
practice. Muto and Aoki (2009) follow a more textbook-like style; instead of lists of errors,
their book is divided into chapters situated around common themes and situations. It also
divides errors into categories, taking into account the type of error, and is therefore one of
the few books to acknowledge the cause of each error. However, many of the “Expressional
Errors” (for example, those on p. 20) seemed overly prescriptive. This book was also theshortest of the three.
There are many more books focused on common English errors, each with various
strengths and weaknesses. What seems to be lacking is a volume for teachers: one that not
only lists errors, but provides suggestions on how to approach different corrections; one that
contains exercises useable in or outside of class, with clear, simple explanations that can beunderstood by students of all levels. Of course, this is a monumental undertaking, and any
such book would inevitably be a permanent work-in-progress. This study was devised bothto show the need for such a volume and to test the effectiveness of simple exercises
designed to teach students the correct way to use difﬁcult grammar.

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Common English Errors: Causes and Corrections

MethodCommon errors made by students were collected during the course of several years ofclasswork and in-class conversation. Students were almost all ﬁrst year university students
enrolled in compulsory communication classes, and their English abilities were between
false beginner and low intermediate level. The range and scope of the errors produced was
likely limited by both student levels and the course content; they are not necessarily
representative of all common English errors made by Japanese learners. However, theresults should still be applicable to a wide range of students in Japan.
The errors collected were then analyzed to determine the cause. The three maincategories were: use of grammatical constructs that do not exist in Japanese; words andphrases produced via direct translation, resulting in unnatural or incoherent phrasing in
English; and use of English loanwords that have come to carry a different meaning or
nuance in Japanese.
Two examples were chosen to represent each type of error. In the ﬁrst category (distinctions
that do not exist in Japanese), together vs. with me and well vs. often were selected; in thesecond (direct translation), what vs. how and know vs. hear (about) or meet; and in the ﬁnal
category (loanwords), come here vs. come on and safe vs. safety.
Students were asked to complete a short survey to determine the prevalence of each of
the six selected errors. Two versions of the survey were created; each had a slightly different
set of questions. Approximately half of the students took Survey A at the start of the term;
the other half took Survey B. (Both surveys are included in Appendix A.) During the term,
students will perform exercises and activities designed to help them become aware of andlearn to correct some of these errors; at the end of the term, they will take the other survey(A or B, whichever they did not take at the beginning of the term). The results can beaveraged to check overall improvement as well as compared for each individual student.
These results, designed to determine the effectiveness of the planned in-class activities andlessons, are forthcoming.

Analysis and Discussion
Thirty-one common errors were identified and analyzed in this study. These wereseparated into three groups: (1) English vocabulary and grammatical structures that either― 83 ―

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言語と文化 No. 33

do not exist or are not distinct and separate forms in Japanese; (2) errors that are likely
derived from a direct translation of a Japanese word or phrase; and (3) errors stemming fromthe use of English loanwords when the Japanese meaning is not the same as the original
English deﬁnition. There were 16 common errors that fell into the ﬁrst category, seven in thesecond, and six in the third. Two of the errors were difﬁcult to categorize. Table 1 shows
the six errors that were later chosen for student surveys and lessons as an example. A full
explanation of each common error, including speculation on the cause of the final twoerrors, is included in Appendix B.
Table 1
Explanation of Errors Chosen for Surveys
Difference Not Found in
Direct Translation
Loanwords
JapaneseWith me vs. Together
Come on vs. Come here
What vs. How
Let’s go with me together.
Hey, John! Come on! Come
How What do you think?
一緒に is used for both withhere!
どう思いますか？
me and together.
Know vs. Hear about
Well vs. Often
When did you know hear
I go well often.
Safety vs. Safe
about this band?
I am a safety safe driver.
よく means both well andこのバンドはいつ知りましoften.
たか？
Note. The ﬁrst two columns contain: (1) Words or phrases that are often confused; (2) A
corrected example sentence; and (3) A Japanese translation of the word, phrase, or sentence
in question. The third column does not contain a Japanese translation.

Over half of the total errors (approximately 52%) stemmed from English grammaticalforms and words that had no exact Japanese equivalent. This is no surprise, considering thatsuch distinctions are likely to be the most difﬁcult for students to understand. They are thegrammatical equivalent of the consonant sounds /l/ and /r/; these sounds are difficult forJapanese speakers to produce, in part because they often cannot hear the difference.
Of the remaining errors, nearly 23% came from incorrect direct translations and almost
20% were loanwords. The remaining 6% were unsorted. Translation is tempting for students
of foreign languages, but, as Barker (2010) put it, “no matter how useful or common an
expression or word might be in your native language, there is no guarantee that translating it
will produce an equally useful and common expression in the language you are trying tolearn” (p. 11). Many words and phrases cannot be translated directly, and even those that― 84 ―

Common English Errors: Causes and Corrections

can are not necessarily used with comparable frequency. As for loanwords, it is easy toassume that because a word is originally from English, it can be used in English the same
way that is it used in Japanese. However, many English loanwords in Japanese have taken
on different nuances or even completely different meanings as they have become commonlyused in Japan.
In the second part of the study, students were given surveys containing commonly
confused words and phrases and asked to choose those that were correct. The pair with thehighest error rate was the loanword safety versus the English safe; the lowest was theloanword come on versus the English come here. See Table 2 for the complete numbers andpercentages.
Table 2Error Rates
With me vs. Well vs.
Together
Often

What vs.
How

Know vs.
Hear/Meet

Come on vs. Safety vs.
Come here Safe

Total
number of
57
109
103
71
46
184
errorsPercentage
of students
26%
49%
46%
32%
21%
82%
answeringincorrectlyNote. A total of 224 students answered the surveys; two students did not answer the question
regarding with me vs. together.

There were not enough questions on the surveys to generalize about which type oferrors might occur at the highest rates. This initial analysis considered only how many
common errors of each type were made, not how many times each error had been made.

Pedagogical Implications
The goal of this study is, ultimately, to aid teachers in their correction of these types ofcommon errors. How can instructors help students to recognize and correct errors without
making them feel discouraged or ashamed of Japanese-style English? Knowing the genesisof a particular error is the ﬁrst step.
For a simple careless mistake, simply pointing out its location to the student is often― 85 ―

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言語と文化 No. 33

enough. The student will often quickly recognize and ﬁx the problem. Many spelling mistakes
and problems with grammatical forms that students already know well fall into this category.
For an error involving a direct translation, more explanation may be helpful. Students
may not have encountered the fact that not all language is able to be fully translated. For
example, they may be surprised to learn about the futility of trying to translate「いただきます！」(a required pre-mealtime exclamation in Japan with no functional English equivalent),or the rarity of「懐かしい！」(which means something like “That’s nostalgic!”) in English.
Students must learn to be aware of their audience; phrases that would be perfectly
comprehensible to a Japanese person may be inscrutable to an American, and vice versa. Of
course, teaching students the set phrases and rules (“In English, we say WHAT do you think
about X, not HOW do you think about X”) is perfectly acceptable, and sometimes all thatcan reasonably be done in class. However, a deeper discussion or explanation is more likely
to leave a lasting impression.
Errors involving English loanwords could benefit from a bit more delicacy in thecorrection. If students have grown up using a word in one way, they may be reluctant tochange; they may even doubt the veracity of the correction. Even a short sentence or two
can help give students perspective. They may be more receptive to the teacher saying not“this is wrong,” but “this is different in American/British/Australian/other variety ofEnglish.” For some students, it may be appropriate to introduce a model of World Englishes,
establishing Japanese English as a legitimate variety with word usages distinct from other
World English varieties. The example worksheet in Appendix C orients students to thisperspective via the two simple sentences on the top, explaining the meaning of “Come on!”in Japanese English and preparing them to examine the variety of possible meanings in
American English.
Finally, errors that occur due to a distinction that does not exist in Japanese are likely
to be some of the most pervasive and difﬁcult for students to correct. These errors do exist
on a spectrum of difﬁculty, from simple phrases that students learn early in their education
and are likely to be able to ﬁx by themselves to entire grammatical constructs that have noJapanese equivalent and are difﬁcult even to explain. For errors on this more difﬁcult side of
the spectrum, clear explanation and repetition is key. It can help to have a visual aid or
picture to explain exactly what the difference is, if possible. Even then, it can take time forstudents to understand and correctly produce a difficult grammar point. Developing
exercises that provide ample examples and allow plenty of practice is necessary, but time-― 86 ―

Common English Errors: Causes and Corrections

consuming as well.
Of course, when choosing to correct students’ work, teachers must consider a variety offactors. It is important to distinguish between errors that are understandable and those thatwould likely render a student’s speech or writing unintelligible. It is important not to correct
so much that students feel overwhelmed and discouraged. It is important to let students
think and speak without unnecessary interruption. In addition, the decision to implement
these sorts of discussions and activities would depend on available class time, student level
and interest, and more. However, it may well be worthwhile, especially if a teacher notices
students continually repeating the same sort of errors and failing to learn from the teacher’s
standard correction process. Even with a lower level class, a quick and simple explanationor 10-minute activity can help students master a grammar point or see things from adifferent perspective.

Conclusion
As this study is still a work in progress, there are ample opportunities for improvement
and further study. The selection of common errors would beneﬁt from a more standardized
approach; for example, the use of an online corpus such as the NICT Japanese Learners ofEnglish (JLE) corpus (as introduced in Izumi, Uchimoto, & Isahara, 2004) to identify agreater number of common errors among a larger group of learners and with a higher degreeof accuracy.
In addition, although Japanese colleagues provided invaluable assistance in the
categorization of the common errors in the study, it would be best to have a larger pool ofpeople analyzing each example to see if a consensus can be reached. It is possible that thefirst and largest category could actually be broken down into more specific groupings.
Further research is also necessary to show the efficacy of the proposed methods of error
correction.
At the moment, the most important point is that most common student errors have quite
understandable causes. Repeated errors are not necessarily due to a lack of care, but may be
a symptom of a learned loanword or a difﬁcult grammatical problem a student has yet tograsp. Teachers should aim to help students not to be ashamed of their errors and varieties
of English, but instead help them learn about other varieties of English. They should help
students discover a variety of international English that will be understandable when talking― 87 ―

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with someone from outside their national circle, with an emphasis not on perfection, but
comprehension.
References
Barker, D. (2010). An A-Z of Common English Errors for Japanese Learners (English Edition).
Nagoya, Japan: BTB Press.
Izumi, E., Uchimoto, K., & Isahara, H. (2004). The NICT JLE Corpus: Exploiting the Language
Learner’s Speech Database for Research and Education. International Journal of the Computer,the Internet and Management, 12(2), 119-125.
Muto, K., & Aoki, R. (2009). Common Errors in English Speaking. Tokyo: Macmillan Languagehouse.
Webb, J. H. M. (2006). 151 Common Mistakes of Japanese Students of English. Tokyo: Japan Times.

Appendix A: Surveys
Survey A
Please circle the best word you think is best for each sentence.
Example: Please answer these questions early / quickly.
1. Could you come here / come on?
2. I am a safety / safe driver.
3. I go to Tokyo Disneyland well / often.
4. Let’s go to the movie together / with me.
5. What / How do you think about English class?
6. When did you know / hear about One Direction?

Survey B
Please circle the best word you think is best for each sentence.
Example: Please answer these questions early / quickly.
1. Please come here / come on!
2. Nagoya is a very safety / safe city.
3. Do you come to Kyoto well / often?
4. Let’s have some cake together / with me.
5. What / How did you think of the new movie?
6. Where did you ﬁrst know / meet him?

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Common English Errors: Causes and Corrections

AppendixB:ListofCommonErrors
DifferencenotinJapanese
DirectTranslation
Japaneseloanwords
(Article+)Singularvs.PluralHighvs.Tall
Challengevs.Try
Ilikedogdogs./Ilikeadogdogs. Thisbuildingishightall.
Iwillchallengetrythisproblem.Allare≟ࡀዲࡁinJapanese.ࡇࡢࣅࣝࡀ㧗࠸࡛ࡍࠋ
UseofArticle(a/thevs.null)
It’svs.It
Fightvs.Don’tgiveup/Doyour
Thereishouse./Thereisahouse. It’ssoundsItsoundsfun.
best
Iwillfightdomybest!
ᐙࡀ࠶ࡿNoarticleinJapanese. ᴦࡋࡑ࠺࡛ࡍࠋ
OnePiecevs.DressUseofArticle(avs.the)
Knowvs.Knowwhere
Iboughtanewonepiecedress.
AhouseThehouseisthere.
Doyouknowmybag?know
wheremybagis?
Bothareᐙࡀࡑࡇ࡟࠶ࡿin⚾ࡢ࠿ࡤࢇࢆ▱ࡾࡲࡏࢇ࠿㸽
Japanese–thereisnoarticle.
Earlyvs.Soon
Teachvs.Tell
Piercevs.EarringIwanttofixitearlysoon.
Pleaseteachtellmeyourname.
Ihavemanypierceearrings.
Bothare᪩ࡃ inJapanese.ྡ๓ࢆᩍ࠼࡚ୗࡉ࠸ࠋ
–edvs.–ingUseofIt/ThemThegameisinterested
Wheredidyousee?seeit?
interesting.࡝ࡇ࡛ぢࡲࡋࡓ࠿㸽Bothare㠃ⓑ࠸inJapanese.
(ObjectisomittedinJapanese)
Useoffuturetense(Don’tvs.
Other/Unknown
Won’t)
Idon’tgo./Iwon’tgo.
Wordorder
Bothare⾜ࡁࡲࡏࢇin
Whatdoyoulikefood?Whatfooddoyoulike?
Japanese.㣗࡭≀ࡣఱࡀዲࡁ࡛ࡍ࠿㸽࣭ዲࡁ࡞㣗࡭≀ࡣఱ࡛ࡍ࠿㸽Useoffuturetense(Will)
WordorderismoreflexibleinJapanese;studentsmaybetranslatingIfixit./Iwillfixit.
thequestionࠕఱࡀዲࡁ࡛ࡍ࠿㸽ࠖ(“Whatdoyoulike?”)and
Bothare┤ࡋࡲࡍinJapanese.
attemptingtoadd“food”ontheend,astheywouldaddittothe
Lookvs.Watchvs.See
beginningofthequestioninJapanese.
Ilookedwatched/sawthegame. AllareぢࡿinJapanese.
Metoovs.MeneitherIdon’tlikeit.ÆMetooneither.
Bothare⚾ࡶinJapanese.
Lendvs.Borrow
Couldyouborrowlendmeyourpen?CouldIborrowyourpen?
Manyvs.Much/AlotofIatemanyalotoffood.
࡮ࢇࢆ㈚ࡋ࡚ࡃࢀࡲࡍ࠿㸽࣌ࣥࢆ೉ࡾ࡚ࡶ࠸࠸࡛ࡍ࠿㸽BothareࡓࡃࡉࢇinJapanese.
ThesubjectisunspecifiedinJapanese,sotheconfusionbetween“lend
me”“borrowyour”mostlikelystemsfromstudentsnotrealizingthe
Narrowvs.Cramped/Small
directioninwhichthelending/borrowingisoccurring.
Thiscampusisnarrowsmall.
⊃࠸ isbothnarrowandsmall.
Othervs.Another
Hereistheanotherotherbook.
Bothareࡶ࠺୍ࡘinJapanese.
Useof“to”
Gotothestore./Gotothere.
Both㹼࡬⾜ࡃinJapanese.
Wishvs.HopeIwishhopehewillwin.
㢪࠺includesbothhopeand
wishinJapanese.
Note:Thefirstcategoryencompassesabroadrangeofdifficulties;theeasiestarewordsthatinclude
moremeaningsthaninEnglish(forexample,᪩ࡃcanmeanbothearlyandsoon),whilethemostdifficultarebasedonconceptsthatdon’texistinJapanese(suchastheuseofarticlesa/the).

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AppendixC:SampleExercise

Comeon!
InJapaneseEnglish,“Comeon!”oftenmeans“Comehere!”
InAmericanEnglish,themeaningisalittledifferent:
Comehere!

Comeon!

Meaning

ExampleCometomeHey,John!Comehere!

Comewithme
Hurry!

Comeon,let’sgotothestation.
Comeon!Classisstarting!
Comeon,tellmetheanswer!

Please;
Whydon’tyou…?;
Youshould…

or

A:Let’sgoouttonight!
B:Ishouldgohome…
A:Comeon,Iwanttodokaraoke!
A:Iamagenius!
B:Comeon,evenmygradesarebetterthanyours.

Don’tjoke;
Beserious
Doyourbest;
YoucandoitComeon,Alice!Youcanwintherace!


Also,payattentiontothepronunciationandintonation:ComeONorc’MONWhatdoes“comeon”meaninthesesentences?
1. _____Comeon,thecaféisoverhere.

Meaning:

2. _____Go,Dragons!Comeon,team!

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.

3. _____Comeon,thisisn’tfunny.
4. _____Comeon,we’relateforthemovie!

Comewithme
Hurry
PleaseDon’tjokeYoucandoit

5. _____A:CanIborrowapencil?
B:No.
A:Comeon,Ireallyneedone!

Choosetwodifferentmeaningsfor“comeon”andwriteasentenceorconversationforeach.

Example:Hurry–Comeon,thetrainleavesin5minutes!

(1)

(2)

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