A Tiny English Mistake That Survived For 30 Years

“I haven’t been corrected in English for 30 years!” marvelled Stefania, as I adjusted something she said to make it sound more natural.

To be fair, what she actually said was closer to:

“It’s 30 years that I don’t receive correction” which, as a slightly ungrammatical English sentence I also had to correct.

Towards the end of our 1-hour conversations, just before we correct any mistakes together, I like to repeat the point that 95% of our mistakes will be corrected by reading and listening. It’s kind of an annoying mantra of mine.

This isn’t an empty promise or motivational fluff. It’s exactly how we learn our first languages. We hear something often enough, and eventually the wrong versions just stop sounding right.

But Stefania had hit the other 5%.

Without explicit correction, or feedback in some other form, it is unlikely she ever would have noticed her error.

I’ve forgotten the actual mistake Stefania made, but here’s how it happened: 

Learners see and hear lots of correct English sentences. 👀👂 ➜ ✅✅✅

But they never see “This sentence is impossible in English.” 🙈          🚫❌

So their brain thinks: “I don’t hear this much, but maybe it’s still OK.” 🤔🤷‍♂️

For Stefania, she was able to communicate her ideas extremely well for years. Decades even. But she was never told that her Italian sentence pattern in English was wrong.

Without correction, the old Italian pattern stays.

You used to need a teacher, or a particularly pedantic English speaker willing to risk a punch to the jaw to point out your errors. But these days, with AI and grammar checking software, even the most insidious 5% of errors have nowhere left to hide.