Would you correct someone's English if...
The person is a friend and has corrected your Spanish? I want to help my friend speak English better because she cannot pronounce written English well and it comes out being worded like Spanish. She said she wants to learn English and has banned Spanish tv in her home. But for example when she tries to share a word she has read off of a box or label I cannot understand what she is saying until she explains to me what it is in Spanish.
I want to help her but I don't want to make her feel bad or discourage her. She only points out fatal Spanish mistakes to me, like when I said "dirigir" when I meant "digerir."
I tried for one day to speak to her in English but I stopped because I felt horrible that she either did not understand or did not know how to respond. I think sometimes she does understand English but the problem is I need to learn how to talk more slowly and maybe not use contractions. I did not realize my unconscientious use of contractions could be throwing her off.
7 Answers
Would you tell a good friend that they had bad breath?
Of course you would.
A little update:
I had a Bolivian friend who visited England. She wanted to visit Nuneaton.
So she asked for a ticket "I can have a ticket to NooneeeAton?"
It is pronounced None eat on.
Speaking English from the written word is practically impossible many many words have to be heard.
And sentence structure is different - your friend needs some help.
She is doing her best but needs a teacher / mentor - you.
Yes do correct, but it may change your friendship. On your profile you say your husband is Mexican - so you have had your own immersion course! Does he know her? Would he be able to help her too?
Has your friend chatted to you about improving her English? I know I find full on only speak Spanish hard work - one hour one to one is enough for me!
When you chat is it a social situation or are you doing something else and the chat is incidental? Do you know how she started to learn English - is she entirely self taught?
You are clearly a confidant speaker of Spanish and well motivated wanting your children to speak two languages. Do you live in Mexico or the USA?
Find out why your friend wants to learn English and ask her if she finds it difficult. Pronunciation in English is a nightmare for natives but if you cannot reach a reasonable level you will not be able to make yourself understood. However, she may only want to ask basic things be able to follow simple TV programmes and understand written notices, which is why you need to chat to her.
The way forward,if she is keen, but not having lessons, is to set aside 30 to 40 minutes to work on English perhaps a grammar point perhaps pronunciation. You can think of something where she can help you - but depending on her level of education she may not be comfortable advising you on grammar. She may feel useless in front of you so you must be encouraging.
In our class our teacher doesn't correct us enough but it is a difficult balance as correcting means the conversation is interrupted.
Our favourite teacher would continually set exercises and challenges from the previous lesson - perhaps some sentences where we had to identify the mistake - taken from mistakes we had made or filling in gaps with vocabulary we had learned.
Find out if there is a topic she is interested in and let her have a note of some vocabulary, perhaps find a podcast or video on the subject then at a later stage chat about it.
These sites may help but the first two are by people from Spain so are slanted to British English:
She has had children and does not post at the moment.
The above is run by someone from Barcelona. I know lots of other sites but here is one that deals with specific problems - I find it useful. In fact I suggest you read all three sites because understanding what Spanish speakers find difficult in English will improve your Spanish
There is nothing to feel bad about being corrected, I consider myself an expert in English but I still appreciate people correcting me as often or as little, as long as I know that the other person is my friend and is making a legitimate effort to improve my skill and command over the language, instead of presuming that she may feel bad or upset or demotivated on being corrected you should sit with her and talk to her, may be this is just your presumption and may be she doesn't have any issues with the same, and as long as she trusts you and knows that you care for her I don't see any reason why she would feel bad about it.
It depends on the mutual understanding between the both of you. I can do any thing for my best of friends and if she is your best friend then sure you should try to help her .. but don't just limit your assistance to just correcting her wherever she goes wrong, instead frame out a comprehensive plan for her, coach her on the important grammar concepts, look up some good links online for her and make her read them to improve her handle over the language as till the time she doesn't understand the grammar you correcting her won't have a long term impact and she may continue making the same errors over and over.
Hope it helps .. and I appreciate you trying to help your friend. regards.
Hello, Charlotte,
Welcome to the SpanishDict forum.
Your friend has already made it clear to you that she wants to learn English and so it would be right for you to correct her (offer corrections to her ) English, as a good friend! 
You could ask ¿Quiere(s) que yo corrija su(tu) inglés? = Do you want me to correct your English?
However, the manner in which you do this or any person does this this could potentially either encourage her or leave her feeling deflated and wanting to give up. I am sure that you would like to help her in the right way
It is important to approach this in a sensitive way and realize that , at the outset, that your levels of ability in each other's language are not the same!
From what you are saying, it sounds like that initially, you may need her to continue to explain in Spanish exactly what she is meaning by a word she is trying to pronounce and then you can correct her pronounciation as soon as you are sure of the word she is trying to say.
However, a better idea occurred to me: that if you could both communicate by Skype video link and she could show you what she was trying to say by pointing to the object in question , this would give you a visual connection with her thinking. Ask her to point to the object she is trying to tell you about if whenever possible! You could demonstrate this principle through an example by pointing to something like a book and saying the word: slowly and clearly enunciating every syllable.
She is likely to make many mistakes as you both begin to communicate together, but I would suggest that you focus only on the major mistakes and give her the chance to gain confidence while she learns to apply / put into practise what you are teaching her.
When she has grown in confidence and no longer makes those major mistakes you can start to look at the more serious of the minor mistakes.
Most of all, speak (English) slowly and clearly and I would also recommend that you praise every success /step she makes in the right direction with a "Well done! (¡Bien hecho! or good try!:(¡Buen intento!)
Update: I have only just read your profile Charlotte. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that your Spanish level was advanced I had wrongly thought you were an intermediate level student You certainly didn't me telling how to ask her in Spanish if she wanted you to correct her English ...my sincere apologies! I also didn't know that you were married to a Mexican native speaker well, if what the other person said here is correct, I would encourage you to enlist the help of your husband in helping her to learn English provided that his level of English is at least Intermediate and perhaps you could both help her together???
I hope this helps
Corrijan mi español, por favor
In my experience people attempting to learn a language are always open to corrections.
I know my Spanish speaking friends always correct me. I recommend that you just ask her.
At SD we all keep correcting each other every time we see any of us erring and none ever minds being corrected even though we have never met each other physically there are no ego issues as we all know that we are here to learn from each other and this common goal we have ahead of us also makes us good friends with each other .. Yes there are some misunderstanding at times but we sort them out like matured beings ... We have never let any ego issues tarnish our friendship .. especially when we know that we are being corrected for our own good..
So if you think there is an ego issue, I would say that you first need to resolve that concern before even thinking about the language help.. as ego and friendship don't go hand in hand for a long time .. they are inversely proportional to each other .. haha ..
Give you friend the example of SD mates and then he/she will understand what you are trying to do for him/her .. haha
I agree with most of what Jimmy says, but have some things to add/alter.
What Jimmy says about coaching your friend intensively makes a lot of sense, but I think you need to proceed rather prudently here. I am a non-native speaker who prefers corrections, but there are tons of people I know who wouldn't appreciate corrections, let alone diving headfirst and bringing up grammar concepts.
Sometimes it isn't about trust or understanding but a desire to do things by oneself (with maybe a bit of ego in the mix). You have to experiment and see once before reaching any conclusions.
If your friend appreciates your help - great! Go ahead and share your knowledge! Nothing like the joy of mutual learning, I tell you!
If she doesn't seem to appreciate it (which might manifest as openly as "Erm.. okay... I would have figured that out myself though..." to plain not using the offending word in the conversation), don't be disheartened. You can still help by using the Repeat Right trick: every time she makes a mistake, answer in a phrase that corrects the mistake.
Like, if she says "I and you are such good friends, right?", you might respond with an enthusiastic "yeah!", wait for an opportune moment, and say "Well, since we are such good friends, why don't I treat you to some ice-cream/discuss global warming?". Mission accomplished! As they say here, "The snake will die and the stick won't break."
[I guess you guys could argue that the first phrase wasn't exactly wrong since it got the ball past the net]
Bottomline: Don't be afraid to correct people. Just do it the right way so you both feel satisfied.
Pouring a bucket of water over a guy on fire = good.
Pouring the same bucket on guy asleep in bed = bad, even if it does wake him up.
About how you are talking - don't try to consciously change too much. Your friend probably appreciates a native tone more than one which is adapted and altered so much that it sounds mechanical. Just go slow, but keep those slangs and contractions flowing. Don't hesitate to explain slangy terms and contractions if you are greeted by a confused face. People are more accepting of help with slang and contractions than ordinary speech.
As a last point I want to make, careful about the differences between pronunciation problems and characteristic accents. You usually only want to help with the former, not the latter (which some people actually like), and if you are unsure which it is, don't try to correct up front (use the RR trick, see if there's an attempt to copy, and if not, desist).
Good luck!
