Filipinos are respected as prized workers around the world for their English language prowess, hard work, honesty and great service ethics. English is the single most unifying business communication language of the increasingly inter-connected networked globalized world, where skilled workforce mobility works in favour of globe-trotting OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers).
The Philippines is ranked number one in the world for Business English proficiency by the GlobalEnglish Corporation, a provider of cloud-based software to advance English literacy in global organizations. Next top five are Norway, Serbia, Slovenia, and Australia.
According to the worldmap.com, Philippines has a very high percentage of English speakers with 92/5% behind UK 97.7% and USA 95.8%. Philippines is also has world’s third largest English speaking population with nearly 90 million English speakers, behind 251 million in USA and 125 million in India, all ahead of 59 million English speakers of UK.
Of course, not all Filipino possess the English language proficiency in the same measures. One in five USA tech workers are non-native English speakers. Forbes, one of the world’s most respected business publications, lists low English language proficiency as a threat to the success in business and career. To excel and succeed, OFW are recommended to continue to polish their English skills.
Despite Philippines having a large number and percentage of English language speakers with top-ranked Business English language proficiency in the international surveys, some OFW make plenty of mistakes in English. To help OFW improve their English language skills, the most common mistakes made in the usage of English nouns are listed below. Covered here is the list of nouns whose singular and plural forms are same i.e. always use the singular form of these nouns even for denoting the plural scenario. Never insert “s” or “es”, etc at the end of these nouns.
Common mistakes include foods, moods, stuff, staffs, advices, polices, fishes, buffaloes, etc, all these are wrong. Examples below are equally useful for those wishing to improve their English as well for the Filiophile wishing to pickup Tagalog language vocabulary.
- Incorrect: Ate, thanks for lots of delicious foods.
Correct: Ate, thanks for lots of delicious food.
- Incorrect: “Ewan ko sayo”, her many moods swings make me go crazy.
Correct: “Ewan ko sayo”, her many mood swings make me go crazy.
- Incorrect: Wow, I received heaps of stuffs in my “pasalubong” (gift).
Correct: Wow, I received heaps of stuff in my “pasalubong”.
- Incorrect: “Galit ako“, embassy staffs are so “malupit” (rude).
Correct: “Galit ako”, embassy staff are so “malupit”.
- Incorrect: Thanks for all your advices for the NLRC claim.
Correct: Thanks for all your advice for the NLRC claim.
- Incorrect: Suddenly several polices surrounded the culprit.
Correct: Suddenly several police surrounded the culprit.
- Incorrect: There are lot of fishes in the ocean.
Correct: There are lot of fish in the ocean.
- Incorrect: She bought many buffaloes (carabao).
Correct: She bought many buffalo (carabao).
Leave your own examples and clarifications in the comments.
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~ Authored by: Al Dhillon
