This document compares and contrasts the English and Spanish languages. It profiles a Spanish-speaking English language learner and analyzes common errors made by Spanish speakers learning English. These include incorrect word order, pronoun usage, tenses, pluralization and capitalization. The document also outlines key features of Spanish such as its structure, sounds and dialects. It describes both the similarities between English and Spanish as well as challenges faced by Spanish speakers, and provides instructional activities to address differences between the languages.

1. Language Comparison
Tiffany Krasley

2. English Language Learner Profile
• Daniel Ortiz
• From Mexico
• First language Spanish(never became fluent in L1)
• Enrolled in Kindergarten in Allentown, PA in 2008
• Currently in 3rd grade
• Intermediate level of language proficiency

3. Common Errors
• Incorrect capitalization
• Improper word order
• Supplementation
• Tenses errors
• Omission of words
-Ex. “kick soccer balls.”
• Improper pronoun usage
-Ex. “him likes to play”

4. Key Features of Spanish
• Indo-European language
• Romance Language Family
-head-initial constitute order
- pronominal clitics
- negative concord
- rich agreement morphology
- null subject Phenomenon
• Two unique features
-use of ‘personal a’
-clitic doubling of indirect objects
• Spanish is the primary of official language in:
-Spain
- Equatorial Guinea
-eighteen countries of central and South America
- the U.S. protectorate of Puerto Rico
• Multiple dialects of Spanish

5. Language Differences &
Similarities
English Spanish
• Subject, verb,
• Subject, verb,
objective with
objective
flexibility
• 26 letters in the
Alphabet
Similarities • Additional letter ñ
• Different sounds:
• Punctuation at the • Alphabet
-a, e, I, h, j, r, l, y
end of a sentence • Phonetic
• 8 diphthongs and spelling • Punctuation
12 pure vowels • Read left to positions in
• Verb movement is right beginning and end
restricted to • Same • five pure vowels and
auxiliary verb punctuation five diphthongs
marks • Gender classification
of words
• Verbs in Spanish
offer meaning to the
action and the doing
of the action

6. Challenges
• Beginning stages of language acquisition is
acquired quickly because of similarities in alphabet
and phonetic spelling
-students commonly mix up English and
Spanish sounds for the letters a, e, I, h, j, r,
i, y
• Final sound pronunciation is difficult
- differences in ‘s’ sounds
-is ‘s’ comes after ‘ch’ or ‘sh’ ’iz’
sound
• Constant blends are non-existent in Spanish and
are a challenge for students
• Differences in word order:
-null subjects
-preverbal subjects in Spanish
-post verbal subjects

7. Instructional Activities
• Traditional approach
-manipulation of word order to get new
information from sentences
- fill-in the blank activities or worksheets
• Hands-on approach
-picture dictations to discover differences in
amongst them.
-Ex. Map routes
-index cards with sentence words on them for
students to manipulate
-Dominos game: teacher creates domino with
different sentences that have the same
information on each half and students find
sentences with matching information

8. The End
Language Error Reason for Error English language rule
1. Improper word order In the Spanish language it is common for the English sentences start with the subject, verb, direct object
verb to come first
1. Improper pronoun Direct object pronoun is placed in front of the Pronouns for subjects are he, she, I we and they and for the
verb and replaces article as well. direct object him, her, me us and them
1. Incorrect plural form/ The English rule add ‘s’ to the end of words Man to men common mistake mans
to make it plural confusing Spanish speakers Foot to feet common mistake foots
supplementation because of rare supplementation occurrences Goose to geese common mistake gooses
1. Incorrect past The English rule changes present tense to Present form past form
past by adding –ed confusing Spanish Go went
form/supplementation speakers because of rare supplementation To be was, were
occurrences Think thought
1. Article omission of In the Spanish language indefinite articles In English, articles are used before mass nouns. For
are sometimes omitted instance, I am going to the hospital. In Spanish they might
‘the’ ‘a’ ‘an’ admit ‘the’ from the sentence.
1. Incorrect capitalization In Spanish single subject pronouns are not All proper nouns are capitalized.
capitalized as well as calendar dates and only
the first part of titles.