My nephew, a six year old Australian born, when visiting Croatia with his parents, would yell after my boys: Čekaj za ja, čekaj za ja, which was his translation of "wait for me"!!!!
I will never forget my English teacher, she was from US and her lessons were always descriptive when it came to common mistakes. Like - juice is concentrated, you are focused 😊
For some time I thought "focused" was the only correct term here. But lately I've heard many native english speakers use "let me concentrate" in standard speech, so I guess both is fine nowadays.
@@Jetpans many native speakers don't know difference between TO and TOO, so I wouldn't consider native same as profound in language 😊 But you a right, they use concentrated in everyday language.
Thank you very much for your lesson today! I live in Canada for past 55 years and still make many mistakes in English language! Sadly ,never have opportunity to take appropriate lessons and being 88 years old ,I guess I will died without ever spiking perfect English! I love your short lesson in this video ! I will try to memorize correct way to use certain pronunciation! Velika Vam HVALA uz želju da govorite ” MOJ” jezik mnogo bolje nego kako ja govorim vaš!👏🏻👍 Pozdrav I sve najbolje! ,Ana 🇭🇷🇨🇦
@@PaulBradbury Thank you for a such nice article and this video. I read article from top to the bottom and it's a quite informative, interesting and funny. Thank you very much.
How about, 'on the face of the place' hahahaha....iliti 'na licu mjesta'....maybe in English would be 'on the premises' or less formally, 'on the spot'...
Thank you for this video, today I'm 43 years old and I'm making the same mistakes.I was not a good student, and I heard English on TV. today i spoke english, swedish, italian. learned everything on the street with people.I appreciate your effort and honesty. Croatia is my homeland. God bless you Mr.
I often hear for "sitting in the sun(light)" : " I am sitting ON the sun!" A direct translation from Croatian! Of course then I imagine them sitting on top of the sun - hot!
This was so funny and informative and I learned more stuff in this video than in school. The way how you explained all those mistakes is really fun and memorable so now I will always have a picture of the parrot when thinking about when you use on and in haha Please make more videos like this, I wish I had this entertaining teacher while I was learning English in school because now my grammar would be probably much better :)
Thank you, but the articles would take months. Explaining the general rule is simple, but then the exceptions - i am still learning how, but I will try and do one when I have time (not this year)
These are common mistakes for Romanians, too. Truth be told, I am amazed of how many grammatical mistakes I notice in the language of native speakers, things that our students don't make. For example, "should OF said" instead of "should HAVE" said. Bottom line, Croatia is one of the countries I visited where I had no problem whatsoever in getting to understand people. Everywhere I turned around, people would speak English and that is absolutely great.
@@ivrtaric indeed, they naturally know this. And they also know very well the difference between "there", "their" and "they're", which a lot of natives don't know nowadays.
The adjective/adverb distinction really is a big one. One good meme I found on the topic was when one character said: "I'm doing good." to which the other replies: "No. Superman is doing good, you're doing well." 😆
Haha. Yes it is, and quite easy to fix once you understand the distinction. I come across it a lot, but with people from all over the world, not just Croatia.
As an English teacher in Split, I have noticed the exact same things - use of Past Tenses, articles and phrasal verbs, collocations... we work tirelessly to avoid these... Thanks for posting - I am going to use this in the classroom every single year!👏👏
A translation I saw in a restaurant in Dubrovnik that sent (and still sends!) me into hysterical laughter was a menu item translation of "jaje na oko" (sunny side up) as "egg on eye" !
That is true, a lot of Croats make these mistakes because they literally translate Croatian to English, so they speak English the Croatian way instead of speaking English the English way :D
You know when I learnt the difference between adjectives and adverbs - by learning Esperanto. The difference is so clear to me, that I'm surprised that many native English speakers confuse things like good and well.
u'r giving 2much credit to Croatian schools, main reason why every1 in Croatia speaks English well is subtitled tv programme. it's to this day my main language learning tool, I can speak English, Spanish, German, now I'm learning Japanese same way. Listening is most important thing is language learning, I believe
Very interesting. Native English speaker from South Africa living ten years in Zagreb. My wife has a degree in English literature so speaks fluent English. She still however uses funny expressions. I will put the laundry out to dry. Instead of I will hang out or just hang the washing.
Being from North America, "I will put the laundry out to dry" sounds fine to my ear. Maybe "I will hang the laundry out to dry" is better, but I wouldn't find the first to be incorrect.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to my English, it is full of strange things. I am the only person I know, for example, who say sprint, sprant, have sprunted
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Oh, I remembered one! My gf always corrects me and says that I'm not "drinking a pill" but "eating a pill" and that it is "drinking a soup" and not "eating a soup". So which is it then? That drives me nuts because every time she says that she drank a soup I get a mental image of her chugging a pint of soup lmao. And every time she says she ate a pill I get a mental image of her chewing on a pill instead of getting it down with a gulp of water.
Taking a pill is what we usually say, even though we usually drink water to take the pill. Eating soup is correct, even though it's runny it's not a drink 😊
As usual - great and funny content, Paul! 🙂👍I'd say lack of articles is prolly a main thing. Croatian language has no acrticles so many Croats, even those who speak English so perfectly, tend to forget them. I must confess, I leave them out too. Many times. :p
I am surprised Paul, that you didn't mention my pet peeve; the insistence of English speaking Croats on pronouncing English vowels, specifically A and U in a weird way, so Rugby becomes Ragby (and is spelled that way!) and Cat becomes Ket. I am told they are taught that way in school and it's how they interpret the American version of English (though there are a huge amount of variables in USA alone.) So you get Croatians speaking perfect English but with a pseudo US style and a Croatian accent. When I had a school English teacher call me "e Fanny Men" I knew I had found a crusade. So, to make it absolutely clear, ´"A" in English is pronounced the same as in Croatian. "U" however is almost the same , but if Croatians pronounce it as they would in Croatian, it sounds like a strong Yorkshire accent, so it needs to be a little softer, like the double o in cool. I think I deserve "e pet on the head" for that!
Yes agreed. Several other things I could have added. Will be doing a lot more vids in the New Year, and the language ones seem popular. Have a few ideas.
My fluent Croatian wife mangles the vowels. We had an American friend named Brett and she called him Brat She also can't get the double consonants right. Te nis instead of ten nis.
Get on the bus, but once you get on, you're in, correct? "Get on the plane! ... I say f*** you I'm getting in the plane! There seems to be less wind in here" - George Carlin
Yes it is quite tricky. You get on a bus, plane, ferry and train, but you get in a car. Once you are in, you are still on, I think - Where are you? I am on the bus to Split, but I guess you could also say I am in a bus to Split, but that sounds strange. Best advice to avoid confusion is to walk.
I must admit, you made me laugh as I am native croatian speaker living in Australia for the biggest chunk of my life, I recognize in Croatian community over here ( I mean in Australia ) mistakes like those even people spending decades still unable to master those mistakes. Awesome clip. Goodonya (I had to do that)
@@PaulBradbury I live in Sukošan. Near Zadar 13 km, 15 min. Svako selo prica drugacije, susjedno selo Bibinje mi nerazumijemo neke rijeci. Mi smo fenomeni po jeziku i dijalektu
This is great, good job! I watched a lot of similar videos because I reached a certain level of english where I can speak fluently and understand 99% of the things BUT I'm completely aware I'm simply making (too) many small mistakes. So besides watching videos like this one I also started to read in English (I'm basically just buying books that I enjoyed reading or wanted to read jn Croatian and now reading in English). Is there anything else you'd recommend (apart from watching movies or taking classes)?
Thanks! Not sure where you are, but chatting to native speakers is always good. There are various expat groups all over Cro on FB, which have a mix of locals and foreigners and they organise meetups and events
I am a Croatian woman, but don't have a habit of making those kind of mistakes. I am not saying that my English is perfect or that I'm better than everyone else, but these mistakes are common among Croats.I hope you understand that many Croats learn English on the principle: let me learn as much as I need to communicate with others on a basic level. The rest is not interesting to them. I am not talking about all Croats here, but there are quite a few of them. For example, I learned English through series and movies. I never used a book to learn grammar. I learned to speak the language and grammar correctly by ear. I am happy that you love our country.
@@PaulBradbury It is quite high, yes.Thank you. I had to come back to this video to see if you responded. Unfortunately I didn't get notified about your response. I am happy you love Croatia and that you enjoy living here.
Language related videos are always so interesting and these are good observations and advice's 👍 Yeah, lot of people translate to English directly how something is said in Croatian and in many cases that doesn't make any sense in English. But because of that sometimes we translate Croatian directly to English just for fun :) One thing that I prefer in English is writing every word in the title with first capital letter (except articles), in Croatian it really annoys me that only first word has capital first letter, that just doesn't look nice to me, so sometimes I break that rule and write the title it the English way :) But even though my English is quite good I still haven't mastered fully when to use 'a' and when 'the'
You never WILL do my friend. It is a near impossible task for a Slav. It still, still drives me round a bend. And, yet, I would almost consider myself a native English speaker.
@@PaulBradbury yes, portals have different approaches when it comes to titles, but when it comes to names of the songs, book titles etc. it is almost always with all caps, I was thinking about that.
Aleksandar I think it's quite easy - 'a' (or 'an') is used when we don't mean exactly a known thing ... and 'the' is always used when we know something we're talking about ... I want to thank Mr. Paul for such an amazing video and all his other videos are amazing ... really amazing
@@PaulBradbury oh, I think you know Croatian well as if you are living in Croatia for 20 years now :) Znaš Ti hrvatski jezik samo se praviš Englez,,, :)
when i was in the croatian army we had to write some universal test on english and the resoults give u representation on how good u know english i had 90 % i was proud and i can wreally comunicate grate on english but when i listen to this man afther this video i feel stupid .
lol i`ve waited for than and then....I am 41y old and I still remember my first english textbook when i was in 4th grade. but perhaps our best teacher of english language is tv set. we use subtitled not dubbed movies or series. don`t you agree? it does help a lot
Hahahaha, as a menu designer myself I can tell you, I've seen people bring me their old menus with such butchered English to the point of people thinking it's a completely new cocktail or something xD Though I'm also guilty of butchering German. I can fix the English translation but the German is all google translate baby XDDDD
I studied German and Italian at school. Learned English through movies 😛 In the end I didn't use German and Italian for 20 years, so in the end I only know English 😑
I made exactly the same errors (as a Croatian). Thank you for the correction, I'll try to keep this in mind. At least I know why my auto correction always mark my words in documents :)
These were some really good examples, Paul. My favourite is: 'a shit of paper", which is how most Croats would pronounce 'sheet'. Generally speaking, most Croats have great difficulty mastering their 'own' language for a variety of historical and political reasons. But, that is a different topic, altogether.
This video is so incredible! xDD Personally I haven't seen anyone making any of those (probably b/c I'm a Croat myself) but if I spoke English with my countrymen more often those would be the exact mistakes that I'd expect. It's so funny XDDD You've really picked the good ones like blue/blond and sit on a coffee hahah XDD
I'm an Italian who speaks Croatian and in my experience I've never heard any of these errors except the use of the articles. Since Croatian doesn't have articles, this is a skill that not many Croats can master properly (the have the same issue when learning Italian, though)
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@@stefanotironi1423 In my opinion, the younger generations often speak close to perfect English. With people being more detached with their local friends, spending more time at home and online especially since Covid-19. For example I'm 26, living in Croatia, working as a software developer, having a (long distance atm) gf from North East India. I hardly ever get a chance to use Croatian today. I find myself thinking in English and it gives me problems when I have to speak Croatian eloquently because I formulate the thought in English in my head but now it has to come out in Croatian. It's a real struggle sometimes.
I learned most English from the internet, music and video games, and some of it were from actual English periods in school. I've consumed said media too much that I basically speak English with an American accent.
@@PaulBradbury I get it, just saying the similar sounding words with one letter off are what connects all English speakers of a certain level of fluency.
When I was visiting Canada, a decade ago, people there use to ask me, not: How are you? but: How are you doing? My response: I'm ok, or, I'm good. Even today I don't understand why they put this "doing" in the end.
great video, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of people, who studied English, didn't study grammar properly either, because they didn't feel like it,...
In school, we were taugt that the capital of England (and UK) is Landn. To my surprise when I went there I found out they call it London, same as we. We also have an old name for this city, Londra
Singular informacija, plural informacije. Singular Savjet, plural Savjeti. We don't really use it but it exists. Informacije is a bit tricky because it can also be referred as a singular, example: Izvor informacije (Lit. The source of information) or just the word Informacije which is a plural on it's own meaning: Informations and the singular is Informacija.
I am croatian and I only did 3 of these mistakes. I actually make more mistakes in croatian lol. I kinda grew up with both english and coratian. I speak and understand english like its my own language.
People got this habit of forming up sentence in their mind on croatian first, and then they try to translate "that" sentence directly into English instead just speaking English naturally right away. And it comes out so weird at times its actually funny. Like for example, instead of saying "me too" or " i would like the same", they fire out "me same" xD
"Plava" in this sense means "washed out", diluted. Hair diluted - blonde. Black diluted - blue. Think "isplavljena" (few languages can do with werbs that Croatian can. We are weak in nouns, though
a=general the=specific and I don't know about an, or should I say I don't know how to explain it and it just kinda comes naturally for me even tho I'm not a native English speaker
also, you could say let's sit down for a coffee, also also you could use fishes if you refer to different types of fishes once again it's not fair as I am in touch with the English language all day every day and so I can understand the mistakes that you pointed out about my lovely countrymen
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Blue hair hahaha :''), I never actually heard anyone say that when speaking English but I always wondered why we call the blond hair a blue hair and how that would sound to an English native speaker if we said that. Makes no sense when you think about it XD
My children grew up England and they could never understand how we say blue hair - plava kosa when it is not blue. That is probably the weirdest thing in Croatian for them.
I learned about "indigenous" from this video. I always heard it and thought it meant something like "endemic" and not autochtonous, very interesting how autochtonous is not a common english word.
Until we stumble on Alanis Morissette's lyrics from Canada: "It always looked GOOD on paper, sounded GOOD in theory!" Feels good. Seems good to me ;) Yes, he can't play "good" but you see what I'm talking about, don't you?
My girlfriend has fantastic fluency in English and despite that has a funny habit of saying "no matter that" when she normally means "even though" lol.
As I said in some previous comment, there are some very specific instances where that is true, but the speaker who is using fishes in general use will probably not get to that level of complication in discussion
Most of those are simply just because they’re translated word for word how it’s said in Croatian, which might not be the exact phrase in English. And some are also only because there’s only one word in Croatian for both words in English, like your examples of borrow and lend (posuditi), and teach and learn (učiti). And you’d be surprised how many Americans also don’t know the difference between than and then. 😊
hrvatski je svjetski jezik kojim govore samo najpametniji ljudi. Nisam toliko pametan, trudim se. I am not pefect with the padezi but not bad, but there are many other languages in the world with padezi, some much worse than Croatian. I have been coming across and dealing with them since the age of 9 with Latin, Ancient Greek, German and Russian. And especially after Russian, Croatian grammar is relatively easy as I already understood the Slavic structure.
Half-island Peljesac, 'blitva' on menus translated as.... 'manigold' (wtf?), W = V (Varvick Avenue), and 'put book on shelves' (My NW London juniors always laugh at the apparent luck of 'the', or, "say 'lethal' tata"). 'Reversely'....I lived in Djubrovnik where people (mainly) support Hajdzuk Split. And modus operandaj, drinking ekspreso itd. Takes two to tango....innit bruv.
These are great observations. Many of these are due to incompatable grammar. Most Croats would fail a Croatian grammar test, because they don't really understand why they are talking the way they're talking. It's just natural. But we also never learn English grammar, so a lot of "translation in the head" is just trying to replace Croatian words with English words. So it's like sentences are written in English but grammar is still Croatian if it makes sense XD First one: How do you say that on English is a literal translation of Kako ti to kažeš NA(on) Engleskom. But with English rules it should be: Kako ti to kažeš U(in) Engleskom. That is very weird for us. It's actually the same as your parrot problem. This would imply that we somehow entered into (like walked into a room) of English language.
My nephew, a six year old Australian born, when visiting Croatia with his parents, would yell after my boys: Čekaj za ja, čekaj za ja, which was his translation of "wait for me"!!!!
Haha
It's funny 'cause "čekaj ME"(correct way) is much closer to "wait for ME" than "čekaj ja" 😜
😂
🤣😂👍👏
"Čekaj za ja" would be "wait for I".
I will never forget my English teacher, she was from US and her lessons were always descriptive when it came to common mistakes. Like - juice is concentrated, you are focused 😊
Very good!
Most Croatians I've talked to seem to know US English rather than UK English.
For some time I thought "focused" was the only correct term here. But lately I've heard many native english speakers use "let me concentrate" in standard speech, so I guess both is fine nowadays.
@@Jetpans many native speakers don't know difference between TO and TOO, so I wouldn't consider native same as profound in language 😊 But you a right, they use concentrated in everyday language.
Thank you very much for your lesson today!
I live in Canada for past 55 years and still make many mistakes in English language! Sadly ,never have opportunity to take appropriate lessons and being 88 years old ,I guess I will died without ever spiking perfect English!
I love your short lesson in this video ! I will try to memorize correct way to use certain pronunciation!
Velika Vam HVALA uz želju da govorite ” MOJ” jezik mnogo bolje nego kako ja govorim vaš!👏🏻👍
Pozdrav I sve najbolje! ,Ana 🇭🇷🇨🇦
Haha thanks. You can do it!
I've been learning Croatian for about 7 years now. They get their own back on us with their grammar!
You might find this useful, from a viewer of this video - fantastic info www.total-croatia-news.com/lifestyle/66160-croatian-language-horrors
@@PaulBradbury Thank you for a such nice article and this video. I read article from top to the bottom and it's a quite informative, interesting and funny. Thank you very much.
@@dbunic you are welcome. Lots more coming if you want to subscribe
@@PaulBradbury a great article and I totally connected with that woman’s energy.
My favorite literal translation is:
kako da ne - how yes no
This one is legendary!
How about, 'on the face of the place' hahahaha....iliti 'na licu mjesta'....maybe in English would be 'on the premises' or less formally, 'on the spot'...
Tko te šljivi...who plums you
hahaha, dobra!
well, in that case "da" in "that" and not "yes" so it would be "how that no". anyway, na licu mjesta is one of my favourite
Thank you for this video, today I'm 43 years old and I'm making the same mistakes.I was not a good student, and I heard English on TV. today i spoke english, swedish, italian. learned everything on the street with people.I appreciate your effort and honesty. Croatia is my homeland. God bless you Mr.
thank you and happy birthday!
today I speak (not spoke if today)
How funny, it is probably not his birthday, he uses today I am 43 instead of now I am 43. Hilariously funny.
Više te nikad neću vozit na festival vina :)
Učim, hvala puno
Relax Riba, there is a special dialect of English called Ribafinglish which is protected by UNESCO.
@@PaulBradbury 😜😜😜😜👍!Love your sence of humor.(I nearly wrote "...FOR humor")🥴
Thank you for this feedback. It is mostly helpful.
Glad it was helpful!
I often hear for "sitting in the sun(light)" : " I am sitting ON the sun!" A direct translation from Croatian! Of course then I imagine them sitting on top of the sun - hot!
Even hotter than sitting on a coffee
This was so funny and informative and I learned more stuff in this video than in school. The way how you explained all those mistakes is really fun and memorable so now I will always have a picture of the parrot when thinking about when you use on and in haha Please make more videos like this, I wish I had this entertaining teacher while I was learning English in school because now my grammar would be probably much better :)
The parrot is great. Thanks for your kind words. Subscribe to the channel. Plenty more where this came from. Cheers.
@@PaulBradbury haha after the parrot part, you got me so I am looking forward to your new videos. Have a great day :)
Thank you! A very useful video! Greetings from Croatia!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for this video, I have learned something new.
Glad it was helpful!
Mr Bradbury, could you please delve a little deeper into those "pesky" definite and indefinite articles?
You are a great teacher!
Thank you, but the articles would take months. Explaining the general rule is simple, but then the exceptions - i am still learning how, but I will try and do one when I have time (not this year)
These are common mistakes for Romanians, too. Truth be told, I am amazed of how many grammatical mistakes I notice in the language of native speakers, things that our students don't make. For example, "should OF said" instead of "should HAVE" said. Bottom line, Croatia is one of the countries I visited where I had no problem whatsoever in getting to understand people. Everywhere I turned around, people would speak English and that is absolutely great.
Totally agree with you. Perhaps I should do a vid 25 most common mistakes native speakers make speaking English
@@PaulBradbury that would be interesting. I'd also redirect it to my students.
The Romanians at least have a natural understanding of when to use "the" vs "a/an" (Romanian has the suffix -ul which pretty much means "the")
@@ivrtaric indeed, they naturally know this. And they also know very well the difference between "there", "their" and "they're", which a lot of natives don't know nowadays.
The adjective/adverb distinction really is a big one. One good meme I found on the topic was when one character said: "I'm doing good." to which the other replies: "No. Superman is doing good, you're doing well." 😆
Haha. Yes it is, and quite easy to fix once you understand the distinction. I come across it a lot, but with people from all over the world, not just Croatia.
Thank you. Even as a certified translator I can vouch that some things said in here are soooo true.
Haha, but I have to say that the level of English in Croatia is amazing
@@PaulBradbury I have to agree with you. Maybe Dutch could be compared with us, but Dutch do it, well, the Dutch way... Greetings from Zagreb!
Hvala vam što ste dodali ovaj video. Našao sam se kriv u nekim izrazima. 😅
Glad to hear it. We will have more like this on the channel if you want to subscribe.
@@PaulBradbury thank you, I already subscribed.
As an English teacher in Split, I have noticed the exact same things - use of Past Tenses, articles and phrasal verbs, collocations... we work tirelessly to avoid these...
Thanks for posting - I am going to use this in the classroom every single year!👏👏
haha thanks, nice to hear. We have several more language ones coming next year, so subscribe to the channel if you want to catch them. Cheers!
@@PaulBradbury already done, kind sir!👍🏻
Thanks for these tips as a future professor of English language a piece of advice from a native speaker is allways wellcome.
You are very welcome. You guys speak excellent English, but with just a few tips, if can be even better
Thank you, pozdrav from Croatia :)
You are very welcome
This is better than a comedy show!
Haha
A translation I saw in a restaurant in Dubrovnik that sent (and still sends!) me into hysterical laughter was a menu item translation of "jaje na oko" (sunny side up) as "egg on eye" !
Now check these out www.total-croatia-news.com/lifestyle/21467-lost-in-translation-the-croatia-edition
Hope they have hotdogs 😂😂
That is true, a lot of Croats make these mistakes because they literally translate Croatian to English, so they speak English the Croatian way instead of speaking English the English way :D
Yes, we English are not much better, but hope the video helped.
LeptirMariposa "Translate me across the street!"😜
thank you Mr. Bradbury.You have explained some things that were a bit off for years to me and my rusty english.
You are very welcome
few vs a few was really cool to learn :) I've always felt there was a difference, just didn't bother to dive deeper into it I guess. Thx!
Good to hear. It is actually one of the biggest mistakes I come across, and easy to fix. Glad it helped.
We all fall to same trap,speaking as we used to in our native language.
You know when I learnt the difference between adjectives and adverbs - by learning Esperanto. The difference is so clear to me, that I'm surprised that many native English speakers confuse things like good and well.
It is scary how many native speakers can't get this basic thing right in English.
Thank you so much from Croatian working in UK.
Haha, hope it helps
Yes this is true.
We need more informative videos like this one to improve ourselves. Thank you.
More to come!
@@PaulBradbury Glad to hear that 💪🏾
Thank You.
You're welcome
Big help 👍🏻
Great!
u'r giving 2much credit to Croatian schools, main reason why every1 in Croatia speaks English well is subtitled tv programme. it's to this day my main language learning tool, I can speak English, Spanish, German, now I'm learning Japanese same way. Listening is most important thing is language learning, I believe
Fo sure TH-cam etc is the driving force, but that is true elsewhere as well, and the standard of English in Croatia is far above the average.
Its not television. Its more PC games and internet than television.
Mr. Paul you are good man!
Haha
Very interesting. Native English speaker from South Africa living ten years in Zagreb. My wife has a degree in English literature so speaks fluent English. She still however uses funny expressions. I will put the laundry out to dry. Instead of I will hang out or just hang the washing.
Being from North America, "I will put the laundry out to dry" sounds fine to my ear. Maybe "I will hang the laundry out to dry" is better, but I wouldn't find the first to be incorrect.
@@evc1782 it's not incorrect to my ear either. Just sounds a bit strange.
The last phrase "a little way" caught me off guard, I've heard of a wee bit, but this is just another level of BrE
I wouldn't pay too much attention to my English, it is full of strange things. I am the only person I know, for example, who say sprint, sprant, have sprunted
Oh, I remembered one! My gf always corrects me and says that I'm not "drinking a pill" but "eating a pill" and that it is "drinking a soup" and not "eating a soup". So which is it then?
That drives me nuts because every time she says that she drank a soup I get a mental image of her chugging a pint of soup lmao. And every time she says she ate a pill I get a mental image of her chewing on a pill instead of getting it down with a gulp of water.
Taking a pill is what we usually say, even though we usually drink water to take the pill. Eating soup is correct, even though it's runny it's not a drink 😊
As usual - great and funny content, Paul! 🙂👍I'd say lack of articles is prolly a main thing. Croatian language has no acrticles so many Croats, even those who speak English so perfectly, tend to forget them. I must confess, I leave them out too. Many times. :p
Getting the articles right is one of the hardest things in English
Great video! Thank you Paul! I have heard 'angry at' used quite a lot though - perhaps a regional (or situational) thing in the Antipodes 😊
Thanks, and I am sure there are some regional differences down under. People here say 'angry on you' a lot as well. Thanks for watching.
I am surprised Paul, that you didn't mention my pet peeve; the insistence of English speaking Croats on pronouncing English vowels, specifically A and U in a weird way, so Rugby becomes Ragby (and is spelled that way!) and Cat becomes Ket. I am told they are taught that way in school and it's how they interpret the American version of English (though there are a huge amount of variables in USA alone.) So you get Croatians speaking perfect English but with a pseudo US style and a Croatian accent.
When I had a school English teacher call me "e Fanny Men" I knew I had found a crusade. So, to make it absolutely clear, ´"A" in English is pronounced the same as in Croatian. "U" however is almost the same , but if Croatians pronounce it as they would in Croatian, it sounds like a strong Yorkshire accent, so it needs to be a little softer, like the double o in cool.
I think I deserve "e pet on the head" for that!
Yes agreed. Several other things I could have added. Will be doing a lot more vids in the New Year, and the language ones seem popular. Have a few ideas.
My fluent Croatian wife mangles the vowels. We had an American friend named Brett and she called him Brat
She also can't get the double consonants right. Te nis instead of ten nis.
First time someone explained the difference between "than"and "then" to me, that was actually very helpful,so thanks for that! Heh
Great to hear. Sometimes a simple explanation helps.
My top 3 Croatian to English mistakes: "My best player/film/song" - favourite / "I am boring." 🤣 - bored / goodest and baddest - better and worse
Thank you
You are welcome - hope it helped.
Tnx mate for the adviceS 🤣🤣🤣....great video 👍
Haha thanks - lots more coming if you want to subscribe
Get on the bus, but once you get on, you're in, correct? "Get on the plane! ... I say f*** you I'm getting in the plane! There seems to be less wind in here" - George Carlin
Yes it is quite tricky. You get on a bus, plane, ferry and train, but you get in a car. Once you are in, you are still on, I think - Where are you? I am on the bus to Split, but I guess you could also say I am in a bus to Split, but that sounds strange. Best advice to avoid confusion is to walk.
@@PaulBradbury It's amusing.
@@PaulBradbury How about bicycle?
Much appreciated, thank You.
You're welcome! Lots more coming if you want to subscribe
Thank You!
Hope it helps a little. It is not easy.
@@PaulBradbury It comes with time:-) Thanks a lot! I would add one common mistake: many people pronounce OF as OFF, don't you think?
Very instructive, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
I must admit, you made me laugh as I am native croatian speaker living in Australia for the biggest chunk of my life, I recognize in Croatian community over here ( I mean in Australia ) mistakes like those even people spending decades still unable to master those mistakes. Awesome clip. Goodonya (I had to do that)
Haha tx. Lots more coming if you want to subscribe
you're right. It is our litterally translation of Croatian expressions
I do the same from English to Croatian - it is not easy!
@@PaulBradbury It happens to me also with Italian as I am part of the national minority in Croatia. A lot of black wine :D
Perfect!
thanks
One that my dad makes all the time is saying "explain me" instead of "explain to me", it's driving me crazy 😂
Very true - and he said me. It is not easy.
Oh yes, and "translate me over the street" :-))
@@Vienna1902 😂😂
drive you crazy because you are crazy, shame on you
You are good man. Thank you
Pozdrav iz Zadra
Love Zadar
@@PaulBradbury I live in Sukošan. Near Zadar 13 km, 15 min. Svako selo prica drugacije, susjedno selo Bibinje mi nerazumijemo neke rijeci. Mi smo fenomeni po jeziku i dijalektu
Tx 🌹
You are welcome
This is great, good job! I watched a lot of similar videos because I reached a certain level of english where I can speak fluently and understand 99% of the things BUT I'm completely aware I'm simply making (too) many small mistakes. So besides watching videos like this one I also started to read in English (I'm basically just buying books that I enjoyed reading or wanted to read jn Croatian and now reading in English). Is there anything else you'd recommend (apart from watching movies or taking classes)?
Thanks! Not sure where you are, but chatting to native speakers is always good. There are various expat groups all over Cro on FB, which have a mix of locals and foreigners and they organise meetups and events
I am a Croatian woman, but don't have a habit of making those kind of mistakes. I am not saying that my English is perfect or that I'm better than everyone else, but these mistakes are common among Croats.I hope you understand that many Croats learn English on the principle: let me learn as much as I need to communicate with others on a basic level. The rest is not interesting to them. I am not talking about all Croats here, but there are quite a few of them. For example, I learned English through series and movies. I never used a book to learn grammar. I learned to speak the language and grammar correctly by ear. I am happy that you love our country.
Good for you - I am amazed at the high standard of English here - really impressive.
Yes, as long as you understand what others say and others can understand what you are saying that is fine 😊
@@PaulBradbury It is quite high, yes.Thank you. I had to come back to this video to see if you responded. Unfortunately I didn't get notified about your response. I am happy you love Croatia and that you enjoy living here.
You are sooooo arrogant narcissist
@@tweetybird30 odvratno, razmisli malo o sebi ,preispitaj se
Language related videos are always so interesting and these are good observations and advice's 👍 Yeah, lot of people translate to English directly how something is said in Croatian and in many cases that doesn't make any sense in English. But because of that sometimes we translate Croatian directly to English just for fun :) One thing that I prefer in English is writing every word in the title with first capital letter (except articles), in Croatian it really annoys me that only first word has capital first letter, that just doesn't look nice to me, so sometimes I break that rule and write the title it the English way :) But even though my English is quite good I still haven't mastered fully when to use 'a' and when 'the'
Interesting. Different portals in English have different approaches, I personally prefer things with capitals.
You never WILL do my friend. It is a near impossible task for a Slav. It still, still drives me round a bend. And, yet, I would almost consider myself a native English speaker.
@@PaulBradbury yes, portals have different approaches when it comes to titles, but when it comes to names of the songs, book titles etc. it is almost always with all caps, I was thinking about that.
@@zoranorlic2423 looks like it unfortunately :)
Aleksandar I think it's quite easy - 'a' (or 'an') is used when we don't mean exactly a known thing ... and 'the' is always used when we know something we're talking about ...
I want to thank Mr. Paul for such an amazing video and all his other videos are amazing ... really amazing
Thanks Paul, for teaching us English grammar...
Now teach me Croatian...
@@PaulBradbury oh, I think you know Croatian well as if you are living in Croatia for 20 years now :) Znaš Ti hrvatski jezik samo se praviš Englez,,, :)
@@PaulBradbury th-cam.com/video/wdFHS2LXatU/w-d-xo.html
Good video, sir! I am guilty for a few of them. ;) (this is probably incorrect, too ha ha)
haha - well is it is almost none then few of them, if it is more than that, then a few.
when i was in the croatian army we had to write some universal test on english and the resoults give u representation on how good u know english i had 90 % i was proud and i can wreally comunicate grate on english but when i listen to this man afther this video i feel stupid .
Haha you are doing great
lol i`ve waited for than and then....I am 41y old and I still remember my first english textbook when i was in 4th grade. but perhaps our best teacher of english language is tv set. we use subtitled not dubbed movies or series. don`t you agree? it does help a lot
Yes subtitles are a great asset
I think you could do a special clip on menus
Oh we have some great material on menus lined up
Hahahaha, as a menu designer myself I can tell you, I've seen people bring me their old menus with such butchered English to the point of people thinking it's a completely new cocktail or something xD
Though I'm also guilty of butchering German. I can fix the English translation but the German is all google translate baby XDDDD
I studied German and Italian at school. Learned English through movies 😛 In the end I didn't use German and Italian for 20 years, so in the end I only know English 😑
Same here.Movies and music.
Yes, it's important we learn something in an interesting way.
I made exactly the same errors (as a Croatian). Thank you for the correction, I'll try to keep this in mind. At least I know why my auto correction always mark my words in documents :)
I am glad it was helpful
These were some really good examples, Paul. My favourite is: 'a shit of paper", which is how most Croats would pronounce 'sheet'. Generally speaking, most Croats have great difficulty mastering their 'own' language for a variety of historical and political reasons. But, that is a different topic, altogether.
Haha, that's a great favouite
@@PaulBradbury I speak both languages natively, my father says "we swim at the bitch" (beach).
Waaaaait now, shit and sheet are pronounced the same, aren't they??
@@damirfux2265 Ne, razlika je u naglasku. Shit se izgovara kratko, kao hrv. kit, a sheet dugosilazno, kao hrv. štit.
@@kitstamat9356 ovo nisam znao, hvala.
This video is so incredible! xDD Personally I haven't seen anyone making any of those (probably b/c I'm a Croat myself) but if I spoke English with my countrymen more often those would be the exact mistakes that I'd expect. It's so funny XDDD You've really picked the good ones like blue/blond and sit on a coffee hahah XDD
Haha, glad it helped. Many more to come like this if you want to subscribe to the channel.
@@PaulBradbury I subscribed instantly :D
@@PaulBradbury it would be fun to hear about your challenges while you have been learning Croatian. Thank you for this video, excellent as always!
I'm an Italian who speaks Croatian and in my experience I've never heard any of these errors except the use of the articles. Since Croatian doesn't have articles, this is a skill that not many Croats can master properly (the have the same issue when learning Italian, though)
@@stefanotironi1423 In my opinion, the younger generations often speak close to perfect English. With people being more detached with their local friends, spending more time at home and online especially since Covid-19. For example I'm 26, living in Croatia, working as a software developer, having a (long distance atm) gf from North East India. I hardly ever get a chance to use Croatian today. I find myself thinking in English and it gives me problems when I have to speak Croatian eloquently because I formulate the thought in English in my head but now it has to come out in Croatian. It's a real struggle sometimes.
100 mistakes australians make while speaking croatian
number 1: pronounciation of every word
Roit, mayte.
Paul, thank you so much for useful advices. But, how is your Croatian going on? Can you put some video clip with your real croatian speaking? 😊
Useful advice, not advices... (see the video). Me speaking Croatian? Be careful what you wish for facebook.com/TotalSplit/videos/1214333185366614
@@PaulBradbury change(es) when talking about money.
I learned most English from the internet, music and video games, and some of it were from actual English periods in school. I've consumed said media too much that I basically speak English with an American accent.
Ma lajkamo!
Hvala i pozdrav!
Than and then is a universal issue with non-native and some native English speakers.
Yes, so are several others. But these were the 25 most common i came across in Croatia
@@PaulBradbury I get it, just saying the similar sounding words with one letter off are what connects all English speakers of a certain level of fluency.
Very common is ”to cook a coffee - skuhati kavu” instead of ”to make a coffee"
Yes true, forgot that one.
Skuhati kavu 😄
Isto kao popiti tabletu ili 💊
You can take tablets or pills with water but also without so you will take them but not drink them
Usually if you make it yourself, is "to brew a coffee".
I still can't wrap my mind around Bosnians' "to bake a coffee" - "ispeći kavu" :D
We often apply our own language constructions in other languages😅
Yes, it is a natural thing to do (in all languages).
When I was visiting Canada, a decade ago, people there use to ask me, not: How are you? but: How are you doing? My response: I'm ok, or, I'm good. Even today I don't understand why they put this "doing" in the end.
Never though about it but possibly related to the more formal How do you do?
Very beautiful Sattar l am willing to come Croatia
great video, but you have to keep in mind that a lot of people, who studied English, didn't study grammar properly either, because they didn't feel like it,...
and they still speak really well
In school, we were taugt that the capital of England (and UK) is Landn. To my surprise when I went there I found out they call it London, same as we. We also have an old name for this city, Londra
That's excellent content
Thank you so much! A lot more to come if you want to subscribe
Singular informacija, plural informacije. Singular Savjet, plural Savjeti. We don't really use it but it exists. Informacije is a bit tricky because it can also be referred as a singular, example: Izvor informacije (Lit. The source of information) or just the word Informacije which is a plural on it's own meaning: Informations and the singular is Informacija.
I am croatian and I only did 3 of these mistakes. I actually make more mistakes in croatian lol.
I kinda grew up with both english and coratian. I speak and understand english like its my own language.
22 out of 25 is a good score, well done
You say red wine because you look wine through glass. We say black wine because we look wine through bottle.
haha, nice try, but seeing as more red wine in cro is drunk from plastic bottles, i wonder if that really is true...
@@PaulBradbury I mean wine color in glass or plastic cup (čaša) in comparation with glass or plastic bottle (boca) and big bottle (demižonka)
I read English perfectly but I struggle a bit speaking it because I don't really have a chance to speak it a lot
People got this habit of forming up sentence in their mind on croatian first, and then they try to translate "that" sentence directly into English instead just speaking English naturally right away. And it comes out so weird at times its actually funny. Like for example, instead of saying "me too" or " i would like the same", they fire out "me same" xD
Haha
"Plava" as in "blond hair" would be "pale" in English - etymology comes via Latin and German :)
An Englishman correcting an Englishman in Croatia - whatever next? Interesting, thanks for etymology.
Wasn't meant to be a correction, just a linguistic observation 😉
"Plava" in this sense means "washed out", diluted. Hair diluted - blonde. Black diluted - blue. Think "isplavljena" (few languages can do with werbs that Croatian can. We are weak in nouns, though
a=general
the=specific
and I don't know about an, or should I say I don't know how to explain it and it just kinda comes naturally for me even tho I'm not a native English speaker
also, you could say let's sit down for a coffee, also also you could use fishes if you refer to different types of fishes
once again it's not fair as I am in touch with the English language all day every day and so I can understand the mistakes that you pointed out about my lovely countrymen
Blue hair hahaha :''), I never actually heard anyone say that when speaking English but I always wondered why we call the blond hair a blue hair and how that would sound to an English native speaker if we said that. Makes no sense when you think about it XD
There is a lot more in English that makes no sense. The joys of language.
My children grew up England and they could never understand how we say blue hair - plava kosa when it is not blue. That is probably the weirdest thing in Croatian for them.
I learned about "indigenous" from this video. I always heard it and thought it meant something like "endemic" and not autochtonous, very interesting how autochtonous is not a common english word.
Yes, the first time I heard it was in Croatia
Until we stumble on Alanis Morissette's lyrics from Canada: "It always looked GOOD on paper, sounded GOOD in theory!" Feels good. Seems good to me ;) Yes, he can't play "good" but you see what I'm talking about, don't you?
Haha
My girlfriend has fantastic fluency in English and despite that has a funny habit of saying "no matter that" when she normally means "even though" lol.
Interesting
thanks
Many English-only speakers get 'then vs. than' confused still...let alone Croatians.
Very true
Croatians will also say: Sit down (sidi) which sounds more like talking to a dog. Have a seat would be more polite
Very true
Very common mistake is also "peoples", I have heard that not only from Croatian people :)
Yes agreed
Actually you can say fishes when discussing different species or referring to more species. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm Croatian:D
As I said in some previous comment, there are some very specific instances where that is true, but the speaker who is using fishes in general use will probably not get to that level of complication in discussion
@@PaulBradbury that's true, sorry
Most of those are simply just because they’re translated word for word how it’s said in Croatian, which might not be the exact phrase in English. And some are also only because there’s only one word in Croatian for both words in English, like your examples of borrow and lend (posuditi), and teach and learn (učiti). And you’d be surprised how many Americans also don’t know the difference between than and then. 😊
Yes agreed. And yes, some native speakers could learn something from this vid
How is your Croatian Paul? Did you master padeže?
hrvatski je svjetski jezik kojim govore samo najpametniji ljudi. Nisam toliko pametan, trudim se.
I am not pefect with the padezi but not bad, but there are many other languages in the world with padezi, some much worse than Croatian. I have been coming across and dealing with them since the age of 9 with Latin, Ancient Greek, German and Russian. And especially after Russian, Croatian grammar is relatively easy as I already understood the Slavic structure.
@@PaulBradbury fantastic, I’m impressed.
@@draganavolaric1152 haha but my accent really sucks
How yes no
haha vrh
The same mistakes doing the Germans too. I know this because i seapk both German and Croatian fluentlly.
Half-island Peljesac, 'blitva' on menus translated as.... 'manigold' (wtf?), W = V (Varvick Avenue), and 'put book on shelves' (My NW London juniors always laugh at the apparent luck of 'the', or, "say 'lethal' tata"). 'Reversely'....I lived in Djubrovnik where people (mainly) support Hajdzuk Split. And modus operandaj, drinking ekspreso itd. Takes two to tango....innit bruv.
Half the current English speaking world doesn't know the difference between then and than either.
True story
These are great observations.
Many of these are due to incompatable grammar. Most Croats would fail a Croatian grammar test, because they don't really understand why they are talking the way they're talking. It's just natural. But we also never learn English grammar, so a lot of "translation in the head" is just trying to replace Croatian words with English words.
So it's like sentences are written in English but grammar is still Croatian if it makes sense XD
First one: How do you say that on English is a literal translation of Kako ti to kažeš NA(on) Engleskom. But with English rules it should be: Kako ti to kažeš U(in) Engleskom. That is very weird for us. It's actually the same as your parrot problem. This would imply that we somehow entered into (like walked into a room) of English language.
Yes, it is a common language error - English speakers do the same with foreign languages - although we are terrible at languages in general