Spanish and English look similar on the surface — shared Latin vocabulary, the same alphabet, the same Subject-Verb-Object order. That surface similarity is exactly the trap. Spanish lets you drop the subject, place adjectives after the noun, and pile up negatives, so those habits slide straight into English and produce sentences that feel natural to you but wrong to a native ear.
NativeEnglish.fyi is built for this. Every grammar rule, every pronunciation drill and every mistake correction is shown in Spanish alongside the English. You finally understand why "I have 25 years" is wrong — not just that a teacher crossed it out.
These are the exact mistakes caused by Spanish grammar patterns — explained in Spanish so you never make them again.
Most mistakes Spanish speakers make in English are not random — they are word-for-word translations of Spanish grammar. Linguists call this first-language transfer. Once you can see which Spanish habit is producing the error, it becomes surprisingly easy to correct. These are the six transfer errors we see most often, along with the Spanish logic hiding behind each one.
Spanish is a pro-drop language with flexible word order, gendered nouns, and a large stock of Latin cognates. English keeps the subject, fixes the order, and shares just enough vocabulary to create dangerous false friends. Recognising these six patterns removes a huge share of everyday errors.
Spanish is pro-drop — the verb ending already shows who acts ("Llueve", "Es importante"). English always needs a subject, so learners produce "Is raining", "Is very important", "Are three people here". The fix: add the pronoun — "It is raining", "It is very important", "There are three people".
Spanish states age with tener: "Tengo 25 años" = literally "I have 25 years". This produces the classic "I have 25 years" or "She has 10 years". English uses to be: "I am 25 years old", "She is 10". The same trap hits hunger, cold and fear — "I have hunger" → "I am hungry".
Spanish requires two negatives: "No sé nada", "No vino nadie". Copied into English you get "I don't know nothing", "Nobody didn't come". Standard English allows only one negative: "I don't know anything" or "I know nothing" — never both.
Cognates that look the same but mean something else. "Actually" ≠ actualmente (=currently); "embarrassed" ≠ embarazada (=pregnant); "assist" ≠ asistir (=to attend); "carpet" ≠ carpeta (=folder). Trusting the look-alike leads to real misunderstandings.
Spanish uses one verb, hacer, for both, so learners guess wrong: "I made my homework", "Do a mistake", "Make a decision" vs "make the bed". English splits them: you do homework, work and favours; you make mistakes, decisions and plans. There is no rule — it has to be learned in chunks.
La gente is grammatically singular, so learners write "The people is nice" — but English "people" is plural: "The people are nice". And desde/hace both map to time: use "since" for a start point ("since 2019") and "for" for a duration ("for five years"), never "since five years".
Spanish has a clean five-vowel system and a phonetic spelling where almost every letter is pronounced. English has around fifteen vowel sounds and a spelling that rarely matches the sound. This mismatch is why a Spanish speaker with excellent grammar can still be hard to follow. These are the specific sounds worth drilling.
Spanish words never start with s + consonant — they begin with an "e" (escuela, España, estudiante). So learners insert one in English: "esstudent", "esspeak", "esschool", "eSpain". Practise starting the word directly on the /s/: "s-tudent", not "e-student".
In Spanish b and v are the same bilabial sound, so "vote/boat" and "very/berry" become identical. English V needs the top teeth touching the lower lip with a buzz; B closes both lips. Feel the teeth for "very", not "berry".
Spanish has just five vowels, so the short /ɪ/ and long /iː/ collapse into one: "ship/sheep", "bit/beat" and "live/leave" sound the same. The tense /iː/ is longer with a wider smile; the lax /ɪ/ is short and relaxed. This one pair changes meanings constantly.
In Spanish the d in "nada" or "cada" softens to a th-like sound. Carried into English, "ready" and "wedding" get a soft, blurry middle. English keeps a firm /d/ with the tongue tapping the ridge behind the teeth — crisp, not fricative.
Spanish words rarely end in stacked consonants, so endings get dropped or reshaped: "cold" → "col", "asked" → "ask", "helped" → "help". The past "-ed" is easy to miss too. Say the full ending: "walkt", "playd", "wantid".
In Spanish the letter h is silent, while the harsh j/g (jota) is a throaty scrape. So "house" comes out silent or too rough. English /h/ is a soft, gentle breath from the throat — "hello", "hot", "behind" — never the Spanish jota and never dropped.
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The mistake comes from copying tener ("Tengo 25 años"). English states age with the verb to be: "I am 25 years old". Train yourself to reach for "am/is/are" whenever you talk about age — and the same rule fixes "I am hungry" and "I am cold" instead of "I have hunger".
Because no Spanish word begins with s + consonant — they all start with a vowel, like escuela or España. Your mouth adds that "e" automatically, giving "esschool" and "eSpain". Practise starting the airflow right on the /s/ with no vowel in front, and hold a slight smile so the S is clean.
The costly ones are "embarrassed" (which is avergonzado, not embarazada = pregnant), "actually" (= in fact, not actualmente = currently), "assist" (= to help, not asistir = to attend), and "carpet" (= alfombra, not carpeta = folder). NativeEnglish.fyi lists these with examples so you never confuse them.
Spanish uses one verb, hacer, for both, so the split feels arbitrary. As a guide, you make things you create or decide — a mistake, a plan, a decision, dinner — and you do actions, tasks and jobs — homework, work, the dishes, a favour. It is best learned in fixed phrases, which the app groups for you.
In Spanish two negatives are correct and required: "No sé nada". English allows only one negative in the same clause, so you say either "I don't know anything" or "I know nothing". Using both cancels out logically and marks you instantly as a Spanish speaker.
Yes, but it depends on your background. The th in "thin" exists in Castilian Spanish (the c/z sound), so speakers from Spain often manage it, while Latin American speakers usually replace it with /t/ or /s/. The voiced th in "this" is new for almost everyone. Both use the tongue-tip lightly between the teeth.
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