1. American
English & Español Colombiano
A language
comparison
Patrick Heusner
Hello ESL 502
Wilkes University
Hola
November 2011

2. Similarities
Structurally, both English and Spanish are alphabetic
languages (Pollard-Durodola et al., 2009) and both use the
Roman phonetic alphabet, with minor variations (é, í, etc.).
Both languages have suppletion, where one morpheme
is changed into an entirely different morpheme to alter
meaning (O’Grady, 2010).
Example: to go  went ir 
fue languages accept the Subject-Verb-Object order
Both
Examples: I want bread Yo quiero
In both languages, the verb must agree with the subject.
pan.
Examples: I go, he goes Yo voy,
el va

3. Similarities
• Culturally, English and Spanish are both
international languages that continue to
attract new speakers with perceived value of
the language knowledge(O’Grady, 2010).

4. Distinctions:
Phonemes
Of course, there are several differences between Spanish and English that
provide plenty of contrast and confusion for L1 speakers of both languages.
English has more phonemes in its vowel structure; variations of the
/u/ phoneme are particularly challenging to Spanish speakers
(Mendez, 1982)..
Consider: cup, put, cuisine, cucumber, hurt, pull
There are challenges with consonants, too; English has the ‘hard’
retroflex [ɹ] sound that doesn’t exist in Spanish (Spanish prefers
‘rolling’ [r] sound). Similarly, Spanish speakers often struggle to
distinguish between [ð] and [d] in English (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).
This explains why some Spanish speaking students
pronounce „they‟ like „dey‟

5. Distinctions:
Morphology
Spanish has more morphological cues than English does (Bedore
& Leonard, 2000).
Ex: La niña lava los platos vs. The girl washes
the plates
English morphology is word-based: one can drop the ‘to’ from the
infinitive and use it as a root for other constructs. Spanish isn’t like
this (O’Grady 2010).
Ex: to wash  wash  carwash vs. laver  lav
Spanish marks some of its direct objects morphologically;
English never does (Montrul, 2010).
Ex: I saw to my friend vs. Yo ví a mi
amigo

6. Distinctions: Syntactic
structure
In English, the relationship between head noun and modifier is
more specific (Moreira-Rodriguez, 2006).
Ex: The English „with‟, „in‟, and „on‟ can all be
translated as „de‟ in Spanish in various contexts.
English frequently accepts a preposition where Spanish demands
an entire clause (Moreira-Rodriguez, 2006).
Ex: “The money on the table”(E) vs “The money that is on the
table” (S)
Spanish accepts double clitics, whereas English does not
(Montrul, 2010).
Ex: The Spanish sentence “Yo le dí la plata a ella” would
roughly translate to “I her gave the money to her”

7. Data Journal:
Errors of a Colombian ELL
The linguistic distinctions that I discovered in my research were
reflected in several errors made by my ELL student.
English “Hitler arrive and create…”
Produced
English Hitler arrived and created…
Intended
Analysis When my student mistakenly used the present
tense to discuss the past, this may have been
due to the lack of morphological cues in
English (compared to Spanish) that Bedore and
Leonard (2000) discussed.

8. Data Journal:
Errors of a Colombian ELL
English “In New Year’s Eve…”
Produced
English On New Year’s Eve…
Intended
Analysis When my student used the incorrect
preposition, this likely reflects the more specific
rules for prepositions—and resulting confusion—
in English, as discussed by Moreira-Rodriguez
(2006).

9. Data Journal:
Errors of a Colombian ELL
English “the second language is
Produced the English.”
English The second language is
Intended English.
Analysis The misuse of articles is a common mistake
among beginning ELL students from Spanish-
speaking backgrounds. This reflects how
Spanish requires articles for ideas that English
considers too general for a definite article

10. Data Journal:
Errors of a Colombian ELL
English “It makes me feel my
Produced country stronger…”
English It makes me feel like my country is
Intended stronger…
Analysis Here, my student failed to notice that he was saying that he
could literally feel an entire country. The fact that this error
is not glaring in English to a Spanish speaker may reflect
the comparative lack of direct object markers discussed by
Montrul (2010). In Spanish—which prefers ―feel to” for a
direct object–the error would be much more obvious.

11. Classroom
Implications
The research regarding
differences between
English and Spanish
provides insight into
how teachers may
want to modify
instruction in ELL
classrooms that include
L1 Spanish learners.

12. Classroom Implications
Spanish-speaking students who were strong in phonetic
awareness in their L1 may get frustrated when they learn that
the symbols do not carry the same sounds as in English (for
example, a Colombian student may pronounce the first month
of the year as ‘Hanuary.’) The teacher who uses phonetic
awareness in class may wish to consider teaching or reviewing
the ‘English alphabet’ with Spanish-speaking students.

13. Classroom Implications
Moreira-Rodríguez (2006) is just one of many researchers who’ve
chronicles the struggles that many Spanish-speaking students
have with prepositions in English. For this reason, ELL
teachers may wish to offer students greater opportunities to
authentic English input that includes prepositions. Teachers
of older students may wish to reintroduce this topic explicitly
and have pairs of students examine different prepositions and
create ‘rules’ about their use.

14. Classroom Implications
Spanish-speaking ELL students may also find explicit instruction
of simple distinguishing English features both accessible and
easy-to-remember. For example, the constant S-V-O structure
of English is straightforward and helps students remember
that whereas Spanish can stray from this, English can’t.
Students can then use this to develop their own helpful tips
(for example: if English must start with the subject, then the
different definite articles aren’t as necessary as ‘cues’ as they
may be in Spanish) Students can research and present their
own linguistic findings.

15. Conclusion
• While I focused mostly on implications
that would benefit older ELLs (my
license area) similar modifications may
benefit Spanish-speaking ELLs of
younger ages, as well. Whether
researched solely by the teacher or
collectively with students, differences
between English and Spanish language
can help to make the distinct aspects of
the languages more understandable
and less challenging.

16. References
• Bedore, L. & Leonard, L. (2000). The effects of inflectional variation on fast mapping of verbs
in English and Spanish. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 43, 21-30.
• Freeman, D. & Freeman, Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach
reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, grammar. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
• Gordon, R. & Stillman, D. (1999). The ultimate Spanish review and practice: Mastering
Spanish grammar for confident communication. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Mendez, A. (1982). Production of American English and Spanish vowels. Language and
Speech, 25, 191-
197.
• Montrul, S. (2010). Dominant language transfer in adult second language learners and
heritage
speakers. Second Language Research, 26, 293-327.
• Moreira-Rodríguez, A. (2006). ‘The book on the table,’ ‘the man on the moon’: Post-
modification of nouns by preposition + noun in English and Castilian. Bulletin of Spanish
Studies, 83, 55-67.
• O’Grady, W. & Archibald, J. (Eds). (2010). Contemporary linguistics: An introduction. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s.
• Pollard-Durodola, S. & Simmons, D. (2009). The role of explicit instruction and instructional
design in promoting phonemic awareness development and transfer from Spanish to English.
Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25, 139-161.