English bloopers: 'He said me to go'

The most humorous and head-scratching bloopers occur when many of us attempt to translate from our mother-tongue directly into English. The results can be hard on the ears and embarrassing for the speaker.

Our reader-driven series on English bloopers reaches its fourth instalment; today we look at erroneous translations overhead by our readers.

Praveen Madhukar Naik, 26 from Bangalore, repeatedly hears these three mistakes.

~ "He said me to go."

This is the result of a direct translation. In English, direct commands and directions are given using the verb 'tell'. In this case, we use the past tense of 'tell' -- told

~ "He told me to go"

~ "Please on the fan!"

Praveen finds this is the most irritating blooper, because he hears it every day! In English 'on' is not an action verb in the traditional sense; the 'on' must be qualified with a verb!

~ "Please turn on the fan" or "Please switch on the fan"

~ "He is my cousin brother."

This is another mistake caused by a direct translation; it can be heard in all strata of society. English does not contain a separation/ qualification for female or male cousins, so the correct way to use it would be:

~ "He is my cousin."

Gurmeet Singh Mehtab, a corporate language trainer in Mumbai, teaches English everyday. In Gurmeet's experience, people normally make mistakes with words which cannot be visualised independently. These include helping verbs, prepositions, modals, conjunctions and articles. Here are a few recurring bloopers heard frequently by Gurmeet.

~ "He has eaten a mango yesterday."

When speaking of the past, helping verbs like have and has should not be used. Instead, the correct conjugation of the verb, in this case 'ate', is required.

~ He ate a mango yesterday

Then, there's this:

~ "He is loving Sangita!"

The 'is' is unnecessary in these cases. When showing sustained or continuous action from a verb, the verb alone suffices. This kind of error is the result of a direct translation from the mother tongue into English.

~ "He loves Sangita!"

Here's another common one:

~ "I am standing on the bus stop."

In English, the preposition 'on' signals being above, or literally on top of, something; it is rarely used as an indicator of location. Instead, use the preposition 'at'.

~ "I am standing at the bus stop."


By Praveen Madhukar Naik, Gurmeet Singh Mehtab - Rediff Team
 

roshcrazy

MP Guru
very true ..heres 1 more....
"i wud luv 2 do frenship wid u"....yuk poor english....!!good post.its sad that people make such mistakes during conversations ......
 

melroy88

New member
yup....many make mistakes......its kinda embarassing especially wen ur abroad and an indian makes such mistakes...well sumtimes they might consider it being a accent.... ;)
 
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