What mistakes do Spanish speakers most often make in English?

Here are the ones that most reliably identify a Spanish speaker. The good news is that they are a short, fixable list. **"I have 30 years."** Age uses *be*, not *have*: I **am** 30. **Missing auxiliary in questions.** Not "You like coffee?" but "**Do** you like coffee?" Spanish has no *do*-support, so this one takes deliberate drilling. **"People is..."** People is plural: people **are**. **Present simple where English wants continuous.** "I work now" should be "I **am working** now." Spanish uses the simple present far more freely than English does. **False friends.** *Actually* ≠ *actualmente* (it means "in fact", not "currently"). *Embarrassed* ≠ *embarazada* (which means pregnant — this one causes memorable trouble). *Assist* ≠ *asistir* ("attend"). *Realise* ≠ *realizar*. **Prepositions.** In/on/at have almost no logic and simply have to be learned as chunks: *on Monday, in June, at 3 o'clock*. **Pronunciation:** an added /e/ before initial *sp-, st-, sc-* ("espeak", "estudy"), and the *th* sounds in *think* and *this*, which do not exist in Spanish. Work through those and you will sound noticeably more native, because they are exactly the errors that never appear in native speech.

Stuart

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