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 2 weeks 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 week ago
kernelle@lemmy.world 1 week 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 week 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 2 weeks 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 week ago
Thən məybe Englәsh shəld əwn əp to its dəsrəspəct fər vəwəls.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If we’re doing that we should probably just go full runic
diegantobass@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s a lot of schwas!
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
Maybe Americans should quit teaching their children dialects that damage their ability to spell.
erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
You from New Zealand? Look in the mirror and say “can’t”.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Isn’t that a term of endearment over there though?
akwd169@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Or “huge deck”
faltryka@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s not really how language… or humans… or culture… work.
tostiman@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
TIL there is a difference in pronounciation between those two. I’m not even American!
faltryka@lemmy.world 1 week 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 week ago
depends on the accent.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 week ago
An vs ehn though both are usually ən
Manzas@lemdro.id 1 week ago
Other languages even have similar things like “jei”, “jai” first one means if, the other one is for her