native speakers make spelling errors more often than non native speakers because they learn to speak the language way before learning to spell, which means homophones can easily register as the same word in your mind for years before you even encounter the words in writing. having to unlearn things is usually harder than just learning it in the first place.
Comment on Stat of the day
diegantobass@lemmy.world 1 month agoAs a non-native speaker of english, I can’t get my head around this grammatical mistake. Than and then are completely different!
pyre@lemmy.world 1 month ago
kernelle@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’ve noticed over the years I never used to make the mistake, but the better my proficiency, the more I started making the mistake. I think when you start running on autopilot mistakes like that are made more often
diegantobass@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is a great signal to be careful about! Thanks. Something like a momebmnt when phonetics begin to take precedence on grammar. You don’t think that much when speaking and new mistakes appear.
faltryka@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is a common mistake for many native English speakers and highlights the different challenges in speaking a language and writing a language.
In many regions of the US for example, “than” and “then” are often pronounced exactly the same.
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Thən məybe Englәsh shəld əwn əp to its dəsrəspəct fər vəwəls.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If we’re doing that we should probably just go full runic
diegantobass@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s a lot of schwas!
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 month ago
Maybe Americans should quit teaching their children dialects that damage their ability to spell.
erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
You from New Zealand? Look in the mirror and say “can’t”.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Isn’t that a term of endearment over there though?
akwd169@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Or “huge deck”
faltryka@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That’s not really how language… or humans… or culture… work.
tostiman@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
TIL there is a difference in pronounciation between those two. I’m not even American!
faltryka@lemmy.world 1 month ago
There are many different accents across the US.
Some of them very much pronounce the word “than” like others pronounce the word “then”.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
depends on the accent.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 month ago
An vs ehn though both are usually ən
Manzas@lemdro.id 1 month ago
Other languages even have similar things like “jei”, “jai” first one means if, the other one is for her