You’ve probably heard some adult Japanese or Korean students say, “I play with my friends on the weekends” (meaning “I hang out with my friends”). If you’re like us, you probably had to fake a cough to suppress some laughter. 😅 

But why do students use the word “play” like this? And how should we correct them?

Words With (Slightly) Different Meanings

The thing about mistakes like “I’m playing with friends” is that they’re not totally incorrect. But they’re unnatural enough to cause misunderstandings.

As you might guess, the word play is used slightly differently in our students’ native languages. In East Asia, play refers to not only children having fun, but adults too. 

• In Japanese and Korean, “play” means “to hang out with friends.” This includes going out for drinks, having fun at the beach, or simply going to a party.
• In Mandarin, “play” usually means “to go on a trip or outing.” For example, if you hear a Taiwanese student say, “I’m going to play in Europe,” what they really mean is they’re travelling there.

Words With Multiple Meanings

Words that don’t just have one translation in English pose an even bigger problem. For example, you may have noticed that Japanese students sometimes say things like, “Almost Japanese people like tea” when they actually mean “Most Japanese people like tea.” 

This error occurs, because both “almost” and “most” are the same word in Japanese: hotondo.

As a result, when Japanese students translate from Japanese into English, they usually get these two mixed up. 

Another mistake that’s easy to overlook is the seemingly subtle error in B’s statement below:

A: Can you come to my house on Friday? 

B: Maybe I can’t.

Many learners who say this actually mean, “I probably can’t (come).” This is another case in which one Japanese word (tabun) means two English words (“maybe” and “probably”). (Check out this link if you need help explaining the difference.)

Mistaking these two might not seem like a big problem, but if used in a situation like the one above it can lead to serious misunderstandings, especially if the student forgets to clearly pronounce the T in “can’t,” which then sounds like “Maybe I can!”

The following mistakes also result from the same process of mistranslation:

How To Correct Mistranslations

As you can see, mistranslations involving the words above are often so subtle that they’re hard to detect. For example, if I heard “almost Japanese people like tea” for the first time, I might think that I misheard and that the student had said, “Most Japanese people like tea.” As a result, I’d probably just let it go. 

So try and pay close attention to what your students say, because If you can point out mistranslations like these, you’ll definitely leave a strong impression. This kind of feedback is not only hard to come by, but it also illustrates differences between their native language and English which they’ll find interesting!

So how can we best point out mistranslations? 

First we’ll want to follow the “if you hear something, say something” rule. In other words, if something the student said was unclear or strange, ask them to clarify. 

Then after figuring out what they actually meant, you can teach them more appropriate expressions, like in the following example:

Notice that the tutor above doesn’t only correct the student, but also explains why “play” isn’t the right choice in that context. This helps students better remember the feedback.

If there is time, you’ll also want to provide plenty of examples of the right use of the words. Examples help illustrate how to apply the word to different contexts in English. 

Doing so will help the student overcome their reliance on their native tongue (asobu = “play,” hotondo = almost”), allowing them to form original thoughts in English (“I hung out with friends,” “Most x…” “Most y…”). And in the long run, this will help them develop a better sense of their target language.

📌 Takeaways

Hopefully, this has given you a better idea of why our students sometimes sound unnatural. 

While it can be difficult to identify mistakes involving subtle differences between languages, we can do the following:

1. Spot mistakes using the “if you hear something, say something” rule.
2. Check if the student really meant what they said. 
3. Provide students with more appropriate expressions
4. Immerse them in example sentences.

Happy tutoring!