Engelske ordfeil blant norske elever

1. Hvordan gjenkjenne
engelske ordfeil
Fiona Jane Ellingsen
H2013

2. Semantiske feil
• Misforståelse av ordets betydning/definisjon
• Eksempel: Teens are usually early to pick up
new slang words and popular terms.
• Problemet: En norsk bruker av engelsk tror at
«early» (N: tidlig) betyr samme som the first
ones. Dvs. overførte norsk betydninger av ord
til engelsk.
Andre eksempler: many lands i stedet for
many countries.

3. Kollakasjonsfeil
• Misforståelse av hvordan ord kombineres
• Eksempel: Few manage to keep their original
language when English starts to settle in their
nation.
• Problemet: En norsk bruker av engelsk tror at
ordet English kan kombineres med «to settle».
• Riktig kollakasjon: /…/ when English starts to
take hold in their nation.

4. Stilistiske / konnotasjonsfeil
• Misforståelse av ordets stil eller assosiasjoner
til ordet
• Eksempel: “We got to stop English from taking
over Norwegian” blir for muntlig i en formell
tekst, der et mer formelt ordvalg som “We
should try to prevent the English language
from /…/” er å foretrekke rent stilistisk.

5. Stilistiske / konnotasjonsfeil
• Overbruk av generelle adjektiv
• Dette gjelder særlig “nice”, “good”, “bad”,
“sad”, “little” og “big”, som bør unngås i
fagskriving på engelsk
• Eksempel: Nice to be in Nice….

6. Nice to be in Nice
Thanks for your nice letter. It was nice to hear from you.
I’m so glad to hear that you thought the film Lincoln
was nice.
You asked about my holiday in Nice. Well, let me tell
you all about it. The airport was nice, the flight was
nice, the weather was nice, the hotel was nice, the food
was nice, the room was nice, the pool was nice, the
beach was nice, the people were nice, everything was
nice! Oh, I just remembered … the public toilets weren’t
so nice.
Now tell me about the film. Did everyone in the class
think it was nice?

7. Syntaktiske feil
• Misforståelse av ordets ordklasse
• Eksempel: “I speak New Norwegian “good”
(adjective), I stedet for “well” (adverb)

8. BUT, OR og AND
• Hvis to handlinger skal beskrives i samme
setning, skal de ha noe med hverandre å gjøre
innholdsmessig. Sideordning kobler sammen
to setninger som er like viktige, med
konjunksjoner som and, but og or.
• Eksempel: Feil bruk av BUT: But we have some
people in Norway who /…./
• Problemet: Setningen starter med et bindeord

9. Viktig!!
• Most people tend to make the same mistakes
repeatedly. These may be certain grammatical
errors, words you always misspell, or words
you commonly misuse. Encourage students to
take note of these mistakes, and watch for
them specifically when they proof read a
paper.

10. Examples…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAaddkOjwiI

11. Rettingssytemet
Har er et system som
brukes av noen kollega i
Bodø. Det kommer til syne
gjennom en rettenøkkel
som limes inn i
besvarelsene elevene
sender inn til retting.
Rettenøkkelen forklarer
hva rettingene innebærer.
Som dere se så er dette et
fargekodesystem.

12. To Pass Or Not To Pass
Desmond is an English teacher with over thirty years experience
teaching English in Norway. He told me a story about one of his
Vg1 English students Betty Bimbo. This is the email she sent him.
Dear Mr Mac,
My Johnny is really jealous and says that if I do better than him in
my English exams tomorrow he’ll break every bone in my
body! He got a 2 in his exams. I HAVE TO pass mine! What can I
do?
Desmond envisioned poor Betty in bits and thought that Johnny
must be a big bloke to be able to break all of the bones in
her body… I’d better help her he thought! This is what he wrote
to Ms Bimbo…

13. Dear Betty,
I understand your problem. Pity as I thought you were aiming for a 6 this year but I think I
can help you get a 2. Its’ quite easy really, perhaps not for you, but for the “Johnnys” of the
world it’s a push over.
Firstly make sure you only use small letters instead of capitals. For example if you need to
write the word “English” give it a small e: “english”. Do the same with the personal pronoun
“I” – just write “i”. This will give your examiners the impressions that you have no idea
about English spelling rules and that you don’t give a damn.
Secondly make sure you make plenty of mistakes with your irregular verbs write WAS for
WERE, IS for ARE, HAS for HAVE and visa versa. That should help a lot!
Thirdly make absolutely sure whenever you write “Which” you leave out the h: “wich”. And
finally use some Norwegianisms or better still put the whole Norwegian words in your essay
“fattigdom” instead of poverty and “forurensning” instead of pollution, for example. But be
careful if you do this too much you might actually fail the exam, and it would be boring to
have to live off Johnny for the rest of your life.
Oh I nearly forgot. Just in case you get a really forgiving examiner make sure your essay is
untidy, with no paragraphs, no subtitles and of course DON’T make any reference to
sources! Examiners only read the first and last paragraphs of an essay anyway so try to put
all the mistakes in the first sentence for example:
“In this essay i chose to right about the english language and weather it have effected
norwegian.”
Good luck with your exams, and Prince Charming Johnny. Like John Lennon sang "All you
need is love".
Best wishes
Desmond