This wikipedia page about words and phrases commonly used by European non-native English speakers was interesting, so I decided to make my own little table of similar words and phrases based on stuff I read for my job. For context, I copyedit scientific and engineering journal articles in English, mostly written by Spanish, Italian, and Chinese authors.
| What they say | What they mean | Example |
|---|---|---|
| To result | To be/to become | "After treatment, the cholesterol level resulted lower" rather than "After treatment, the cholesterol level was/became lower" 1 |
| To fill | To pour | "Distilled water was filled into a test tube" rather than "Distilled water was poured into a test tube" |
| A allows to X Y | A allows B to X Y/A allows X of Y | "This technique allows to measure tensile strength" rather than "This technique allows us to measure tensile strength" or "This technique allows measurement of tensile strength" |
| It is Y the X | The X is Y | "It is carried out the experiment" rather than "The experiment is carried out" |
| Organism | Body | "Antioxidants are beneficial to the human organism" rather than "Antioxidants are beneficial to the human body" 2 |
| Such | This | "There is no evidence for such kind of behaviour" rather than "There is no evidence for this kind of behaviour" |
| Which | Whose | "Heat shock factor is a transcription factor which activities have been described previously" rather than "Heat shock factor is a transcription factor whose activities have been described previously" |
| X is Y to be Zed | X is Y to Z | "The results are difficult to be generalised" rather than "The results are difficult to generalise" |
1 Italian speakers do this all the time. Why.
2 Polish and Russian(?) speakers seem to do this.
