Anyone learning a new language will misuse or misunderstand a few words. Some of these are called “false friends” or more commonly, “faux amis,” as in words that look the same but mean different things. For speakers of Latin languages of western Europe, “și” and “zece” appear to be particullarly difficult.
(“Fat frumos” is not fat, but no one seems to mix that up. True “faux amis” are those that do trip us up. Like “distractiv,” doesn’t mean “distracting,” but it means “fun.” If you learned English before Romanian, that might trip you up.)
But in addition to faux amis, there are also words that are misused because the two languages have different rules or different concepts.
Okay, I make mistakes in my native language as well. However, when I speak other languages, I make special mistakes which show that I’m a foreigner. And that’s okay. My point here is to prepare people for mistakes that are common, so you can understand “European” English. Or if you speak European English, maybe you’ll understand why people misunderstand you sometimes.
Prepositions
Prepositions are difficult in any language. They don’t always follow the same logic. English speakers might want to throw in “pentru” all over the place, and might have trouble understanding the use of “cu” or “pe.”
cases
Cases are like prepositions in that what is a preposition in one language might be a case in another. “de” in French and Portuguese is used for the genitive. In some old translations, people add imaginary cases in English. I actually find this useful for learning a new language, as the mistake helps me understand how the root language works.
to/at
A lot of languages do not differentiate between “to” or “at.” In French, both can be “à.” And in Romanian, both “to” and “at” could be “la” most of the time. (Or sometimes even “pe,” and there are other options, depending on the sentence.)
If someone uses “at,” and it makes more sense with “to,” then just understand that maybe that person doesn’t know the difference. Try changing one for the other, and see if that makes sense.
with
The Romanian “cu” is usually translated to “with.” But in many expressions, “cu” is definitely not “with.” “Day to day” in English is “zi cu zi” in Romanian. Are there any rules here? I don’t know. You just have to listen and get used to it. Sorry.
I prefer to use the French “avec,” when I mean “with” and “à” when I mean “for.” That way, no one understands me.
Until
Here’s one that both French and Romanians do when they speak English. “Until” can mean “until” or it can be “before” or “by” or even “up to.” The Romanian “pâna” or “pâna la” and french “jusque” or “jusqu’à” are much more flexible than the English “until.”
I will give an example. I like to buy newspapers at the kiosk, but Adevărul tells me that if I subscribe I can benefit from “prețuri mai mici până la 49,9% față de prețul la chioșc.” My first thought is, “Why is there a ‘sh’ sound in Kiosk?” But after that, I recognised the infamous “până la” which my dictionary tells me means “until.” Of course, in English it would be, “Up to” 49,9 percent off. (I still prefer buying from the Kiosk, but in most cases I would prefer saving money.)
Look at the context. Before? By? Up until? Up to? If the “until” doesn’t make sense, you can ask people to rephrase it.
Phrases and sayings
(I am) Impatient
This isn’t a grammatical thing, but a cultural one. Both Romanian and Bulgarian say, “I await your response with impatience,” rather than, “I look forward to your response.”
Also, when Bulgarians and Romanians want to say, “I am eager to…” they might say, “I am impatient to…” This may look rude to an English speaker who doesn’t speak other languages.
But yeah, English speakers learning other languages often ask for things in ways that sound demanding rather than polite. And the lack of formal and familiar can also cause problems. Even speakers of other latin languages often get confused avec the niceities, and I probably already offended someone today. I’m probably offending you right now. Sorry about that.
Just know, if a Southern European says she is “impatient” she probably means, “looking forward to” or, “eager to” or, “awaiting.”
Gendered pronouns
Some people say that English has no grammatical gender. That is false. While there aren’t gendered adjectives, like in French, Romanian, Portuguese and many other Indo-European languages, English has gendered pronouns. It is a gendered language.
Finno-Ugric languages like Estonian, Hungarian, Finnish and Saami, have no gendered pronouns. There are ways to gender nouns, as there are in English. (Lion/lioness, Actor/actress, Sir/madam, king/queen, prince/princess, etc.) But, in the majority of the world’s languages, personal pronouns are gender neutral. English genders the third person singular. (Portuguese genders the first person. If I were doing a “Hey Rio,” I could write an essay on that.)
So, sometimes Finno-Ugric speakers might call everyone “her” or everyone “him.” It’s not just Finno-Ugrics. Autotranslated subtitles from Chinese and many other languages will get the genders wrong, but so will learners.
I guess the equivalent is English speakers trying to remember whether moon or table is masculin or feminine? Or trying to remember to change the ending of an adjective that belongs to a feminine or masculine or plural object.
he / her
There’s a funny things about European languages, gendered pronouns are not logical. Here’s one mistake Portuguese make. Often, something belonging to “he” will be thought to be “her” thing. It makes sense, “her” looks more like “he” than like “she.”
I remember one Portuguese complimenting about her male cousin’s shirt. “I like her shirt.” The man’s shirt was pretty, but not that pretty.
English is not the only language that trips people up this way. In Dutch, something belonging to “Zij” (singular) is “haar.” Why not say “zijn?” Because “zijn” is something belonging to “Hij!” Yes, I made that mistake in B1 and was told I should go back to A1. I used logic rather than memory. Oh well, at least we don’t have to worry about genders when coding in Python. Unless you play with strings. Then… never mind, that joke is beyond the scope of this.
As we said before, there are ways to get around using pronouns completely, if you make the mistake. You could do drills. Practice on people who are not easily offended by your mistakes.
As for me, I like to copy and paste the pronouns that other people use. That way, if I “misgender” someone, I’m not the first.
But yeah, if you refer to me by the wrong gender, I won’t get offended. I might get confused and think you are talking about someone else, but I won’t get offended. Especially if you criticizing me or gossipping about me, then please use the wrong gender (and the wrong name, wrong description, wrong picture, point in the wrong direction, and so on.)
If you’re saying nice things, please make sure to use my name a lot, so everyone knows how great I am. No need for pronouns when giving compliments, eh?
Conjugations
The one the Portuguese seem to get wrong the most is breathe and breath. Even Portuguese who have lived in Britain and America sometimes make that mistake. (If you learned English as a first language, you still pick it up from your cousins.)
Breath is a noun that turns into a verb, but in some languages, the form doesn’t change as much as in others. In any case, English is so full of funny spellings, that you’re going to misspell something, sometime (either that, or mispronounce it) even if you’re a native speaker.
I haven’t seen Romanians make that mistake. I guess those who write about breath read their yoga in correct English.
Some languages do not conjugate verbs at all. Learners from these languages may not conjugate verbs well. Verbs and nouns in modern Germanic languages don’t have as many forms as Romanian does, but English still has enough forms to trip people up.
Swearing
One dead giveaway that you’re not a native speaker is the excess of a couple of swear words. Even native speakers who are potty-mouthed, or swear alot, will vary their swear words. Most, however, will find ways to express things without swearing, or use mild swear words.
Yes, they swear a lot in American movies, but they also shoot almost everyone they meet, and often steal cars or motorcycles just for fun (or to catch a bad guy, I don’t know). Just because something happens in a film, that doesn’t make it acceptable or normal behavior. And even when it is normal, it isn’t as common as movies make us think. It’s not every day that you climb buildings, spin a web, win a dance contest, or go to court to defend Santa Claus, or is it?
At the same time, not everyone has read this. Some people don’t seem to realise that certain words are not only offensive, but even to those who aren’t offended, might sound angry. If you swear when you’re not even mildly angry, well, you might not be communicating what you want to communicate.
My favorite is walking into the gym and hearing the angry rap song, “Get out of my way.” Who’s way am I in? It was a lovely gym, but maybe subconsciously that’s why I didn’t renew my membership. I just don’t want to be in anyone’s way.
You know how annoying it is when Americans use a certain German swear word all the time? It just shows they don’t speak the language very well.