Making mistakes is the only way to learn a new language. Without mistakes there is no progress. We should not see them as something negative but as something completely natural when starting to speak a foreign language. The types of mistakes that appear when learning a new language are not always the same; they change as we improve in the new language. Likewise, the nature of our mistakes will depend on our native language: the mistakes that a Russian person makes when learning Spanish are usually different from those made by a person of Chinese origin. This is because our brain is accustomed to specific grammatical rules from our native language and these are obviously different in each language. Below we will analyze the 5 most common mistakes that Russians make when they start learning Spanish: 1) Say “a” when you see an “o” (Акать) In Russian, the letter “o” is pronounced as such when it is stressed, but when it is stressed it is pronounced as if it were “a.” Because of this, many Russian speakers imitate this behavior when speaking in English . For example, a Russian will read the word “loco” as “loca.” Something as small as a letter can change the gender of the word or even change the meaning of the word entirely. Remember, in Spanish “o” always sounds “o”. 2) Pronounce the letter “h” In many languages, the letter “h” is pronounced the same as the Russian letter “х.” However, this letter has no sound in English (except when it comes after the letter “c,” then both sound like the Russian letter “ч”). It is common to hear Russians say “jola” instead of “hola.” 3) Do not use articles Articles before nouns are common in Romance languages. Furthermore, within these nouns there are subcategories (definite, indefinite, etc.). In Russian, the concept of an article does not exist . That is why Russians often omit them. For example, instead of saying “Spaniards are very kind people” they say “Spaniards are very kind people.” On other occasions they may use them but find it difficult to choose between the definite article (el), the indefinite article (un) or the absence of an article. For example, they have trouble understanding the difference between “tengo dinero” and “tengo el dinero”. 4) Do not use the verb ser/estar The verbs ser and estar are some of the most used in Spanish. When describing something, it is essential to use one of the two. For example: “the car is red” or “I am at home”. In Russian, on the other hand, these verbs are conspicuous by their absence. These last two phrases in Russian sound like “red car” (красная машина) and “I am home” (я дома), which does not make much sense in Spanish. 5) Not using the correct gender The last common mistake is not using the correct gender of nouns. This mistake is not only made by Russians when learning Spanish, but also by anyone who learns a new language. We usually think that the gender of a word is the same as the gender of that word in our native language . For example, the word “car” is feminine in Russian, but masculine in Spanish, so it is normal to hear a Russian say “la coche”. On the other hand, many words have implicit gender. The word “woman”, as you might expect, is feminine in both Russian and Spanish. These are the 5 most common mistakes made by Russians when speaking Spanish. Do you know any more?