JK Rowling pens a Harry Potter prequel / War of Roses/Holmes?Figg/Walpurga

[Carol]

Geoff wrote:
>  <snip>
It's not necessarily the accent that gives the EFL speaker away, it's
the misuse of the fine tuning of the language if you see what I mean.

Carol responds:
I agree. I can think of several giveaways: confusion over indefinite
vs. articles, confusion regarding prepositions, and confusion over
idiomatic expressions.

One of my clients, whose native language is Spanish, could never get
"in" and "on" straight. I also remember a student from Argentina who
wrote, "Never look a gift horse at the mouth." My all-time favorite,
though, is the Vietnamese student who wrote an essay entitled,
"Holding Down the Fork."

Carol, who thinks we ought to change the thread title but not sure
what to change it to