Word choice

Take the instruction “delete the existing text and type in new text”. A native English writer is likely to write “Please overwrite the existing text.” Many Chinese writers, following the Chinese wording, write “Please delete the existing text and then type in your own words.” A French writer may write “You are supposed to suppress the existing text before typing in your own words”, because French supprimer (delete) shares a root with English “suppress”.

These differences come largely from negative transfer from the first language. They are not only a matter of vocabulary size. They reflect different preferred terms: the first choice is “delete” for a Chinese writer, “suppress” for a French writer, and the function-based “overwrite” for a native speaker.

Sentence patterns

Consider the statement “this paper studies whether a new coiling technique significantly improves surgical success”. Chinese researchers often write a regular but mechanical sentence: “This paper aims to study whether the adoption of a new coiling technique can significantly improve the success rate of surgery.”

Researchers whose first language is Spanish or Italian may follow the longer sentence patterns of Romance languages: “It is our intent to explore the potential improvement in surgery success when the new coiling technique is used in clinical practice, which has drawn wide attention over the decades.”

What these differences mean

Behind these patterns are different ways of thinking, shaped by culture, custom and first-language grammar. They should not simply be treated as errors. They are a natural feature of interlanguage.

As the idea of Global English spreads, such features may become markers of distinct English varieties, in the same way that Indian English and Singapore English are now recognised as legitimate varieties.

For medical writing and translation, this means editing English written by non-native authors is more than correcting mistakes. The editor needs to recognise first-language patterns and decide which ones get in the way of the reader.