What are the common mistakes Chinese speakers of English make?

Question

I want to teach English in China, but I want to know what problems Chinese have with speaking English so I can be better prepared and help them.
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Answer 1

I won't claim these are the most common mistakes, but they are ones I've heard while teaching in Taiwan:

Chinese lacks the following consonant sounds: b, d, g, v, gz, x, z, th. They have a few similar, and many that English doesn't have, but they will stumble the most on the "th" and the "v". They also mix up "r" and "l", and it's difficult to know if Chinese has a true "r" sound.

A list of words like: fall, full, fuel, fool, foal, fill, feel, fell, and fail will be very good practice for them in distinguishing among the various English vowels. It will help them to see the importance of pronunciation, knowing it will change the meaning of the word. My students have struggled with this list. Chinese, like many languages, does not have the short "a" or the short "i" sounds, as in "cat" and "sit".

Grammatically, Chinese has no verb conjugation, no plurals, and ambiguous pronouns, so each of these can be problematic with such things as verb tense, subject-verb agreement, and properly saying the plurals. The "s" sound is often omitted from the end of a word. Much of the time they will use she and he correctly, but sometimes they will mix them up.

Tricks like having them say "were old" very quickly can help them to overcome the tongue twister of saying "world" (any "rl" combination is tough). They don't like to show their tongue, so "th" is hard for them to get used to.

Of course, each student will be on a different level. Enjoy!

Answer 2

I have a professor from northern china, and he told us that the Chinese mix up he and she a lot, because in chinese, it is the same word.