If Spanish is your first language, your English mistakes aren’t random — they come straight from how Spanish works. Spanish lets you drop the subject, puts adjectives after the noun, and is full of words that look exactly like English words but mean something slightly different. So when you switch into English, your brain keeps reaching for the Spanish shape and laying it over English words. The encouraging part is that predictable mistakes are fixable mistakes. Once you can see why a slip keeps happening, you can train it out. Here are the ones that catch almost every Spanish speaker, and what to do about each.
False friends: the words that look right but aren’t
Spanish and English share thousands of words, which is a gift — until it isn’t. “Actually” doesn’t mean actualmente (that’s “currently”); it means “in fact”. “I’m embarrassed” is not embarazada (pregnant) — a famous and awkward one. You don’t “assist” a meeting, you attend it; asistir only looks like “assist”. “Sensible” in English means level-headed, not sensible (sensitive). And a “library” is where you borrow books, while a librería is a bookshop. These false friends slip out precisely because they feel so safe. The fix is to collect your own list: every time a cognate turns out to mean something different, write the pair down — English word, Spanish lookalike, real meaning. A short personal list of the ten that trip you up is worth more than a textbook of a hundred. If you want this kind of vocabulary built in systematically, our Essential English course works exactly this way.
The missing subject, and “I have 30 years”
Spanish doesn’t need a subject pronoun — llueve is a full sentence, and voy already tells you who’s going. English almost never allows that. So “Is raining,” “Is very cold today,” and “Think it’s a good idea” all sound broken to an English ear, which expects a subject in front of nearly every verb: It is raining, I think. Get into the habit of starting with who or what before the verb, even when it feels obvious. The other classic comes from tener: in Spanish you have years, hunger and fear, but in English you are them. “I have 30 years” should be “I am 30,” “I have hunger” becomes “I’m hungry,” and “I have cold” is “I’m cold.” Three or four of these cover almost every case — learn them as fixed phrases and they stop catching you out.
Word order: the adjective comes first
Spanish puts most adjectives after the noun — un coche rojo, una idea interesante — so “a car red” and “an idea interesting” feel natural when you’re translating in your head. English flips it: the adjective goes before the noun, every time. A red car. An interesting idea. A big old wooden table. Spanish adjectives also change to match the noun (importantes, rojas), which is why “importants points” and “two reds cars” slip out — but English adjectives never take an “s”. They stay exactly the same whether there’s one thing or a hundred: one important point, ten important points. Drill it with short phrases — “a good teacher,” “three good teachers” — until the adjective-first, never-plural pattern feels automatic.
The small ones that add up
A handful of smaller habits give Spanish speakers away too. “People” is plural in English — “people are,” not “people is” — even though la gente takes a singular verb. Double negatives are correct in Spanish (no sé nada) but wrong in English: “I don’t know nothing” should be “I don’t know anything.” Words that begin with s plus another consonant — school, Spain, student, special — have no “e” sound in front of them, so resist the urge to say “eschool” or “estudent.” “For” and “since” get mixed up too: use for with a length of time (“for two years”) and since with a starting point (“since 2020”). And “make” and “do” are one word in Spanish, hacer, so they blur in English — you make a decision but do your homework. None of these is hard on its own; they just need noticing.
Here’s the good news: because these mistakes come from Spanish, they’re consistent — and consistent problems are the easiest kind to fix. You’re not scattering random errors; you’re repeating a short, knowable list. Pick one item this week — false friends, or missing subjects, or adjective order — and watch for it every time you speak, and it starts to correct itself. If you’d like a teacher who understands exactly where Spanish and English pull in different directions, take a look at the options on our courses page. Your English is almost certainly better than you think — it’s just carrying a few Spanish habits that a little focused attention will smooth right out.
