Grammatical mistakes

[Ian]

Dear George, 
I have heard Russians make quite a few mistakes form using the wrong form of один to misusing надо/нужен.  There are also many "mistakes" which are the norm (like some of the English mistakes you described) in non-Russian areas from parts of the Russian Federation to Ukraine to Kazakhstan; areas that make up a large percentage of the number of native Russian speakers.  I feel the question you are really getting at though is whether the rate of mistakes is significantly lower than it can be with English.  That is hard to answer, but one thing worth keeping in mind is that education in Russian is very different form education in the United States.  Children in Russian schools are drilled relentlessly on grammar where in the US it is often barely touched on at all.  
Best,
Ian
> Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:43:13 -0400
> From: kalbouss at MAC.COM
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Grammatical mistakes
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> 	This question stems from frustrating experiences I've had with people
> in the Columbus area whose grammar is positively atrocious.  I'm not speaking
> of word mispronunciation or spelling mistakes.  I'm speaking of people who seem
> totally incapable of forming a past tense (i.e. "we wuz here," "I seen it yesterday,"
> "he has came here,"), as well as other variances from the norm.  There should
> be no excuse for this, for the most part the speakers are from the working class, 
> but are virtually all high school graduates.
> 
> 	The question I have is this:  "do Russians make grammatical errors?"  When
> I think of all the interactions I have had with Russians, both in Russia and emigres
> in the US,  I cannot recall ever encountering one who made a grammatical error.
> (I'm excluding so-called "heritage speakers,"  persons of other ethnic backgrounds
> for whom Russian is a second language, or people who mispronounce words).	When
> I think about the various dialogues I've read in Russian literature and drama,  I can recall many
> instances of "dialect" Russian which was usually expressed with alternate pronunciations,
> but not really errors in grammar.
> 
> 	A few years back, I was taking a seminar in the Finnish language in Finland.
> After going through practicums in incredible rules of grammar,  declensions, exceptions, etc.,
> one of the participants in the group asked the instructors the same question, i.e.,
> "do Finns make grammatical errors?"  The instructors seemed visibly lost in answering
> the question,  their first inclination was to say, "no they don't" -- yet an answer like
> that seemed positively silly.
> 
> 	If I am right (or leaning in that direction),  what is it about English that seems to invite
> people into making these mistakes when Russian and Finnish (and other languages)
> where there are many more rules and variances, for people to speak correctly?  Perhaps
> at least we can agree that errors in grammar seem to abound more with native English speakers
> than they do with native Russian speakers.
> 
> 	I'd appreciate any musings on this subject!
> 
> George Kalbouss
> Assoc Prof (Emeritus)
> The Ohio State University
> 
> 	
> 
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