Quote Originally Posted by gRomoZeka
Can you tell what mistakes of esl learners are more irritating than the others? Or what aspect of the language (word usage, articles, etc.) is more important for making an impression of "perfect english"?
Like I said, I basically consider the source of the error more annoying than the error itself. Articles, meh. They mark you as a foreigner but I don't think they're that frustrating for a foreigner. Word order could be annoying if it's really out of whack. Using strange words, that is, words that a native speaker would never use in that context could make an argument appear disjointed. I think one of the biggest things, in addition to articles, in terms of frequency is the use of verbs -- a lot of times, that's a marker of a foreigner, since they pick the wrong verbs/forms/constructs. But again, not that "annoying," just somewhat confusing at times.