Spanish Linguistic Interference in the Development of English Language Learning among A2-Level University Students

Abstract

This study analyzed Spanish linguistic interference in English language learning among 81 A2-level students at Universidad Politécnica Estatal del Carchi during the 2026-A academic period, specifically from the GM, VM, HT, IT, JT, and MT class sections. The objective was to identify and classify recurrent learner errors at the syntactic, semantic, morphological, and phonological levels. A qualitative descriptive design based on error analysis was applied through practical grammar, vocabulary, oral production, writing, and reading exercises. At the phonological level, readings from the EVOLVE 2 textbook and pronunciation activities were used to detect the most common pronunciation errors. The information was organized in an expert-validated error analysis matrix that included the type of interference, incorrect learner production, expected English form, possible cause of Spanish transfer, and explanation of each error. The corpus comprised 81 selected error samples: 14 syntactic, 15 semantic, 25 morphological, and 27 phonological errors. The most frequent errors were related to literal translation, omission or misuse of grammatical markers, false cognates, incorrect adjective order, subject-verb agreement, and transfer of Spanish pronunciation patterns into English. The findings showed that Spanish influenced not only learners’ pronunciation but also grammatical structure and meaning construction. The study concludes that systematic error analysis is useful for identifying the linguistic needs of A2 learners and guiding contrastive, communicative, and pronunciation-focused teaching practices.