Chinglish mistakes are grammatical, lexical, or phonetic errors that occur when a speaker applies Cantonese syntax, word-for-word translation, or idiom structures directly to English. In Hong Kong primary schools, these errors stem from first-language transfer (L1 interference), where children translate their thoughts directly from Cantonese before speaking or writing in English.
Fixing these errors requires shifting children away from mechanical translation toward natural English sentence patterns through targeted speaking and writing drills.
Table of Contents
Quick Reference: 10 Common Hong Kong Primary School English Mistakes
Below is a diagnostic reference table comparing the Cantonese root cause, the common student error, and the natural English equivalent.
| Cantonese Root / Thought | Incorrect Student Output (“Chinglish”) | Correct Natural English | Grammatical Rule / Reason |
| 開冷氣 / 熄燈 (hoi lang hei / sik dang) | “Open the air conditioner” / “Close the light” | “Turn on the air conditioner” / “Turn off the light” | Electrical appliances require phrasal verbs (turn on/off or switch on/off), not physical open/close actions. |
| 我好鍾意 (ngo hou zung ji) | “I very like playing football.” | “I really like playing football” or “I like playing football very much.” | “Very” is an intensifier for adjectives and adverbs, never a direct modifier for transitive verbs. |
| 今日好熱 (gam jat hou jit) | “Today is very hot.” | “It is very hot today.” | English weather statements require the dummy pronoun “It” as the grammatical subject. |
| 我唔記得帶功課 (ngo m gei dak daai gung fo) | “I forgot to bring my homeworks.” | “I forgot to bring my homework.” | “Homework” is an uncountable (mass) noun in English and never takes a plural -s. |
| 借枝筆畀我 (ze zi bat bei ngo) | “Borrow me your pen, please.” | “Can I borrow your pen?” or “Can you lend me your pen?” | Confusing directionality: borrow = take temporarily; lend = give temporarily. |
| 聽日見 (ting jat gin) | “See you on tomorrow.” | “See you tomorrow.” | Time words like tomorrow, yesterday, and today act adverbially here and do not take prepositions. |
| 我去過海洋公園 (ngo heoi gwo hoi joeng gung jyun) | “I have went to Ocean Park before.” | “I have been to Ocean Park before.” | Present perfect experiences take the past participle been, not the past simple went. |
| 雖然…但係… (seoi jin… daan hai…) | “Although it was raining, but we played outside.” | “Although it was raining, we played outside.” | Subordinating conjunctions (although) cannot be paired with coordinating conjunctions (but) in the same sentence. |
| 一齊玩 (jat cai waan) | “Can I play with you together?” | “Can I play with you?” or “Can we play together?” | Redundancy: “With you” already implies the group; adding “together” creates an awkward tautology. |
| 我好贊成 (ngo hou zaan sing) | “I am agree with you.” | “I agree with you.” | “Agree” is a stative verb, not an adjective. It never takes the auxiliary verb “to be” in active voice. |
Detailed Breakdown & Classroom Fixes
1. “Open / Close the Light or Air Conditioner”
❌ Incorrect: "Mr. Greg, please open the air conditioner."
✅ Correct: "Mr. Greg, please turn on the air conditioner."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
In Cantonese, the verb 開 (hoi) covers everything from opening a physical door to starting a car, boiling water, and activating an electronic appliance. Conversely, 熄 (sik) or 關 (gwaan) applies to closing doors and extinguishing lights. When children translate directly, they rely on physical spatial verbs (open/close).
How to Correct It at Home
Teach your child the Switch Test:
- Does the object have a physical hinge (a door, a window, a book, a pencil case)? Use Open / Close.
- Does the object run on electricity or have a button/switch? Use Turn on / Turn off (or Switch on / Switch off).
2. “I Very Like…”
❌ Incorrect: "I very like reading Harry Potter."
✅ Correct: "I really like reading Harry Potter."
✅ Correct: "I like reading Harry Potter very much."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
In Cantonese, the adverb 好 (hou) sits naturally before verbs and adjectives alike:
- 好大 (hou daai = very big)
- 好鍾意 (hou zung ji = very like)
Because 好 functions identically in both sentences, children assume “very” behaves the same way in English.
The Rule to Remember
In standard English, very cannot modify a verb directly.
- Use really before the verb: “I really like…”
- Or place very much at the very end of the predicate clause: “I like … very much.”
3. “Today is Very Hot” (Missing the Dummy Subject “It”)
❌ Incorrect: "Today is very hot, so we went swimming."
✅ Correct: "It is very hot today, so we went swimming."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
In Chinese grammar, time expressions easily occupy the subject position (今日好熱 / Today very hot). English, however, is a non-pro-drop language that demands a dummy or expletive subject (“It”) when discussing weather, temperature, and ambient conditions.
In English, “Today” is an adverbial time marker, not the entity possessing the temperature.
The Rule to Remember
Start weather sentences with “It is…”:
- “It is sunny today.” (Not: “Today is sunny.”)
- “It is raining outside.” (Not: “Outside is raining.”)
4. “Homeworks,” “Informations,” and Uncountable Nouns
❌ Incorrect: "We have many English homeworks tonight."
✅ Correct: "We have a lot of English homework tonight."
✅ Correct: "We have three English assignments tonight."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
Cantonese relies on measure words (classifiers like 份, 個, 條) rather than morphological plural suffixes (-s or -es). When Hong Kong primary students learn the English rule that “more than one item needs an -s”, they overgeneralize it to uncountable (mass) nouns.
The Core Uncountable List for P1–P6:
- Homework (never homeworks)
- Information (never informations)
- Advice (never advices)
- Furniture (never furnitures)
- Equipment (never equipments)
If they want to specify quantity, teach them partitive expressions: “a piece of homework”, “two items of advice”, or swap to countable synonyms like “assignments”.
5. “Borrow Me Your Pencil” (Borrow vs. Lend)
❌ Incorrect: "Can you borrow me a ruler?"
✅ Correct: "Can you lend me a ruler?"
✅ Correct: "Can I borrow your ruler?"
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
In spoken Cantonese, the character 借 (ze) covers both incoming and outgoing transactions. The direction of the exchange is indicated by prepositions or context (借畀我 vs 同你借). In English, two completely separate verbs dictate direction:
- Borrow = to take something for a short time (movement toward the speaker).
- Lend = to give something for a short time (movement away from the speaker).
[Other Person] ---- (LEND) ----> [You]
[You] <--- (BORROW) --- [Other Person]
6. “See You On Tomorrow”
❌ Incorrect: "Goodbye, see you on tomorrow morning!"
✅ Correct: "Goodbye, see you tomorrow morning!"
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
Students are taught early in primary school that days of the week require the preposition on (on Monday, on Tuesday, on Sunday). Consequently, they apply this pattern to all temporal nouns referring to days.
The Rule to Remember
Words like tomorrow, yesterday, today, tonight, as well as days qualified by next, last, or this, do not use prepositions (in, on, at).
- “See you next Monday.” (Not: “See you on next Monday.”)
- “We met yesterday.” (Not: “We met on yesterday.”)
7. “I Have Went to Ocean Park Before”
❌ Incorrect: "I have went to Ocean Park with my family."
✅ Correct: "I have been to Ocean Park with my family."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
This error involves two separate pitfalls:
- Auxiliary Confusion: Mixing past simple (went) with present perfect (have + past participle).
- “Been to” vs. “Gone to”: In Cantonese, the experiential marker 過 (gwo) modifies verbs to express life experience (去過). Students know “go” translates to “went/gone”. However, in English, when someone has visited a location and already returned, we use have been to. If you say someone has gone to Ocean Park, it means they are still there right now.
8. “Although… But…” Double Conjunctions
❌ Incorrect: "Although he was tired, but he finished his revision."
✅ Correct: "Although he was tired, he finished his revision."
✅ Correct: "He was tired, but he finished his revision."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
In Chinese syntax, paired correlative conjunctions are the standard grammatical norm:
- 雖然 (seoi jin = although) … 但是 (daan si = but) …
- 因為 (jan wai = because) … 所以 (so ji = so) …
In English syntax, combining a subordinating conjunction (although / because) with a coordinating conjunction (but / so) in a single complex sentence is redundant and ungrammatical.
The Rule to Remember
Pick one, drop the other. A sentence can have Although or it can have But, but never both. The exact same rule applies to Because / So:
- ❌ “Because it rained, so the sports day was cancelled.”
- ✅ “Because it rained, the sports day was cancelled.”
9. “Play With You Together”
❌ Incorrect: "Do you want to play with me together?"
✅ Correct: "Do you want to play with me?"
✅ Correct: "Shall we play together?"
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
This stems directly from the colloquial Cantonese phrase 同你一齊玩 (tung nei jat cai waan).
- 同你 = with you
- 一齊 = together
- 玩 = play
When translated verbatim into English, it results in a double marker of accompaniment. In English, “with me” already demonstrates that the activity is shared. Adding “together” at the end creates unnecessary tautology.
10. “I Am Agree With You”
❌ Incorrect: "I am agree with your opinion."
✅ Correct: "I agree with your opinion."
Why Hong Kong Students Make This Mistake
Many young learners associate expressing agreement with stative descriptive adjectives, such as “I am happy” or “I am ready”. Because Cantonese does not inflect verbs for tense or voice, students treat the lexical item “agree” as a predicate adjective and reflexively insert the verb “to be” (am/is/are).
The Rule to Remember
Agree is already a full verb. It does not need help from the verb to be:
- Present Simple: “I agree with you.”
- Past Simple: “I agreed with you.”
- Negative: “I do not agree with you” (Not: “I am not agree”).
Mr. Greg’s Advice for Parents & Educators
Eliminating Chinglish is not about punishing children for making errors; it is about building habitual sentence models. When children only read textbooks to pass exams, they naturally construct thoughts in Cantonese and translate them when forced to speak.
Here is how you can help your child break this habit naturally:
- Avoid immediate negative correction: If your child says, “Daddy, open the TV,” do not say “No, wrong!” Instead, echo the correct form back naturally: “Sure, let’s turn on the TV. Which channel do you want to switch on?”
- Read aloud daily: Natural exposure to leveled storybooks trains the child’s ear. Over time, sentences like “Today is cold” or “I very like” will simply “sound wrong” to them instinctively.
- Download targeted grammar printables: Practice these rules with isolated exercises before expecting error-free writing in school compositions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do Hong Kong students make Chinglish mistakes?
Chinglish mistakes occur primarily due to L1 language transfer. Because Cantonese grammar does not use verb conjugations, plural suffixes, or dummy pronouns (like “it”), students intuitively apply Cantonese syntax and literal word substitutions when producing English.
What is the most common Chinglish error in primary school compositions?
The most frequent written error is the double conjunction pitfall (“Although… but…” and “Because… so…”). Because Cantonese naturally pairs 雖然…但是 and 因為…所以, students struggle to remember that English sentences permit only one conjunction to link two clauses.
How do interviewers assess Chinglish during Hong Kong P1 Admissions?
Top DSS and private school interviewers do not expect flawless grammar, but they do listen for natural phrasing and comfort with English sentence structures. Frequent literal translations like “open the light” or “I very like” signal that a child is translating in their head rather than thinking directly in English.
