Native speakers' common mistakes

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Schalksnarr
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Native speakers' common mistakes

Postby Schalksnarr » 2013-02-01, 20:36

What would you say are some common grammatical and spelling mistakes made by Bulgarian native speakers?
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Re: Native speakers' common mistakes

Postby language learner » 2013-02-01, 20:59

From a prescriptivist's point of view, there are 3 'mistakes' which are in fact the actual spoken language:
-usage of only one definite article for masculine nouns or mixed usage - depends entirely on the speaker(а/ът, я/ят). The distinction of long vs. short definite article to express nominative vs. oblique case is an entirely artificial introduction and has never been present in any of the spoken varities - therefore only the teachers, linguists, professors, some more educated or prescriptivist people and sometimes the students know the correct usage.
-usage of count form for the masculine nouns ( няколко човека, двама полицая instead of няколко души, двама полицаи) - I'm not entirely sure if this distinction used to be in the language, but now certainly isn't
-usage of кой and derivations instead of кого and derivations - as in the first case, in the spoken language the oblique case form of кой has long fallen out of use and is present only in the prescriptivist standard.

As with spelling mistakes, it depends on how educated is the speaker. The vast majority of the mistakes are about voicing and devoing and reduction - уставя instead of оставя, свадба instead of сватба.
But the vast majority of mistakes is connected with the punctuation - the current punctuation is a terrible joke, there are tens of rules to remember.

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paruha
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Re: Native speakers' common mistakes

Postby paruha » 2013-02-01, 21:52

Nice topic. :)

I have a few comments on имен's post:

- articles in masculine nouns is indeed one of the most common mistakes. However, that only refers to written text. In speech using either ways (long or short defnite article) is allowed.
- I'm with you that няколко човека should be considered wrong. However, as far as I know currently this one exactly falls into the exceptions and it is considered correct...
- punctuation is indeed a problem for many natives

I can also think of a few other mistakes:

- mistaking и and й (quite incomprehensible to me):
* when forming the plural form of a noun, e.g. традиция -> традиции (is CORRECT), but one could come across традиций (NOT correct)
Actually if the latter would have been correct, it would be pronounced differently.
* that/who - който/които. Both are correct words, but are used and pronounced differently
Това е човекът, който ме спаси. -> човек, ед.ч. -> който
Намерих книгите, които търсих. -> книги, мн.ч. -> които

* whose - чийто/чиито. Also both are correct, but are used and pronounced differently. To be honest, I also made this mistake a lot in the past.
Децата, чийто подарък впечатли учителката. -> подарък, ед.ч. -> чийто. It agrees with подарък and not with децата!
Мъжът, чиито приятели го изненадаха. -> приятели, мн.ч. -> чиито. It agrees with приятелиand not with мъжът!

- using incorrect plural form for 1st person, adding "е". Typical for the region around Sofia, but could also be seen in other places: пуша (1st person sg.) - пушим (1st person pl), not пушиме
- missing a "т" in female articles: пролет - пролетта, същност - същността, помощ - помощта
- when to write single and when to write double "н": особеният, рожденият, искрени, есенният
- слято, полуслято и разделно писане (merged, hyphenated and separated words)... those are a total mess to most people, including me kind of. (things like проектозакон, кандидат-студент, ски курорт)
- capitalization... often wronged because of English, I guess. In titles only the first letter of the first word should be capitalized (unless it is a name). Days of the week, months, languages - those are NOT capitalized in Bulgarian.
Защо да харчим пари, които нямаме, за да купим неща, които не са ни нужни, така че да впечатлим хора, които не харесваме?

I don't even remember what standard deviation is.
BezierCurve: It's some important part of sadistics, I believe.

Schalksnarr
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Re: Native speakers' common mistakes

Postby Schalksnarr » 2013-02-07, 20:21

Колко интересно! Благодаря ви за вашите приноси!
Mother tongue: [flag]es-AR[/flag]
Proficient in: [flag]en[/flag]
Good at: [flag]de[/flag]
Not bad at: [flag]nl[/flag] [flag]bg[/flag]
Wanna learn: [flag]grn[/flag] and [flag]fi[/flag]

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Re: Native speakers' common mistakes

Postby language learner » 2013-02-08, 15:27

- I'm with you that няколко човека should be considered wrong. However, as far as I know currently this one exactly falls into the exceptions and it is considered correct...

I've never said it should be considered wrong; quite the opposite - I'm more of a descriptivist. If it is used in speech, then it is the actual state of the language and therefore correct. Of course, then there are registers, but ultimately native speakers are the standard of the correct language usage.
The misuse of й and и is mostly due to not knowing what each letter stands for(the former semivowel and the latter vowel), mixing them up and illiteracy. However I'd argue that writing -ий for the plural of -ия is more correct than -ии - it's been years since I've last heard somebody to pronounce the two и's seperately - everyone pronounces them as a single long vowel nowadays.


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