Sunday, November 09, 2008

Logical

For a long time, I had falsely assumed that the common mistakes that every Spanish speaker makes when speaking English resulted from their inability to disconnect from their mother tongue when learning and communicating in the second language. But I've recently discovered another type of mistake, which has nothing to do with one's first language. It comes from trying to apply logic to the English language. If the opposite of popular is unpopular and pleasant changes to unpleasant , why can't we say that someone is unpolite? The past of peak is peaked and the past of leak is leaked. So what's the problem with saying speaked? If we say yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon and yesterday evening then why don't we say yesterday night? If I like to play then I enjoy to play, right? If what I'm saying makes sense to you then I can conclude that you're understanding, right?