Why don't we correct people's spoken mistakes in a language?
Many times we hear people speaking our own language and making very bad mistakes. In English for example "I don't want to go nowhere", "Do you want to eat something? No, I don't want nothing". Is it because we don't want to appear superior (or bad-mannered) by saying something? Or is that we just don't bother because we understand what is being said.
I have been speaking Spanish for years and Heidita corrected me for saying "Tampoco no me gusta". How is it possible that for years I have been saying this and not a single person ever corrected me?
This site for me is absolutely brilliant, in that, I can relearn things in the correct manner.
What sort of common errors do Spanish-speaking people hear and not bother to correct?
11 Answers
I believe what you say is right, mortimerfran but that's just the way we all are. We don't correct people's spoken mistakes not because we want to feel superior to them by concealing that knowledge (knowledge is a right on every human being whether that person is high up in the eyes of society or down amongst the filth) but because there is often no point. Different people accept different things. By this I mean that some people want to better themselves, improve ther flaws while others are just happy enough to remain the way they are. A large majority of people don't learn from their mistakes and as sad as it may be it's a common fact.
I can safely say, as a teacher, that I correct poorly spoken english a lot. I try not to be crude or rude about it but make the attempt to do it in a gently way. Just a thought. 
As a non-native speaker of English I could say that I learned the correct grammar. Although, when I listen to my students saying horrible things such as: I ain't going nowhere...I think...this is not my language, they can do whatever they want with it just like we do with Spanish in our countries. Now, when I was teaching ELL, I corrected double negatives. By the way, it's OK to have double negatives in Spanish (adding to the list above)
With english at least, it can be boring saying 'proper' sentences all the time. You sound like a robot in my opinion. My group of friends and people at work will often say improper and very poor english on purpose, just to mix it up a bit, and often for the comedy aspect. Or, often I am too tired to correct an english natives poor english or just don't care.
However this is all for fun, but when I hear a non-native english speaker trying to learn english, I correct them politely. generally I repeat what they are trying to say to me back to them properly so they can see their mistake.
So, correcting people depends on the context and situation in my opinion, and yes I wish more people would correct the poor spanish that I speak and write, but perhaps it's for the same reasons that they don't.
This is an interesting and proper way of using double negatives. Quoting from Wiki
'Standard English can use the form "I do not want nothing" as a way of emphasizing that the speaker would rather have "something" than "nothing" at all.'
In response to Janice:
Today, the double negative is often considered the mark of an uneducated speaker, but it used to be quite common in English, even in old literature. Chaucer made extensive use of double negatives in his poetry, sometimes even using triple negatives. For example, he described the Friar in The Canterbury Tales: "Ther nas no man no wher so vertuous" (i.e., "There was not no man nowhere so virtuous"), and he even used a fourfold negative when describing the Knight: "He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight." (i.e., "He never yet no vileness not said / In all his life to no man or weight [status].")
In other languages, double negatives are accepted. An example of this is in the slavic languages, Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Croatian, and Serbian where double negatives are gramatically correct. The following are literal translations of grammatically correct Serbian sentences: Niko nikada nigde ništa nije uradio - Nobody never nowhere nothing did not do (nobody has ever done anything, anywhere); Nisam tamo nikad išla - I did not there never go (I have never been there). Bulgarian forms identical sentences: ?????? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ?????! - I have not never had no feelings (I have never had any feelings). The same applies for Macedonian.
Perhaps in the spoken context people are able to infer the correct meaning in the the active process and are able to internally edit errors.Written language is static and has to stand on its own.Correct form is more important to minimize misinterpretation.
Then there is the issue of considering other's feelings.
I have a habit I picked up, from my dear mother, of correcting peoples spoken mistakes. Ususally someone I know well though. I work with one guy who makes up words all the time (ex. princabelaties). It's a chore keeping up with him.
The examples given show the difference between the Spanish and English languages. Whilst Spanish duly accepts double negatives, in English, a double negative leads to a positive, something akin to mathematics. I don´t want nothing means I must want something. I tend to correct spelling mistakes and other obvious grammatical errors but you would be surprised how many people use double negatives in English.
I want to go nowhere is correct, but I don't want to go anywhere is much better. I want nothing is correct but I don't want anything is much better,
I hope I am right in what I am telling you. I am English so I shouldn't make errors!
Are you saying we should say "I want to go nowhere" and "I want nothing".
