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Negative transfer/ Interference, often coupled with borrowing and language contact, occurs when there are little to no similarities between the L1 and L2. It is when errors and avoidance are more likely to occur in the L2. The types of errors that result from this type of transfer are underproduction, overproduction, miscomprehension, and production errors, such as substitution, calques, under/overdifferentiation and hypercorrection.

Underproduction (Avoidance)

Avoidance/Avoidance behavior, as explained by Schachter (1974), is a strategy used by L2 learners as a means of error avoidance when using structures, sounds, or words that they see as difficult in the language being acquired (L2). Avoidance is a phenomena that is very complex. The complexity comes from identifying what avoidance is and whether or not it has taken place, based on the speakers knowledge and the constructions made in the L2. This means that avoidance occurs when the L1 speaker knows they are avoiding certain sounds, structures, etc. However Kamimoto, Shimura, and Kellar (1992), argue that certain knowledge of the L2 is not efficient in explaining avoidance. For example, Hebrew speakers acquiring English, may understand how the passive voice, 'a cake is made', works, but may use it infrequently or even prefer active voice, 'I make a cake', making active voice a preference, not avoidance behavior. In an attempt to account for the varying avoidance, Kellerman (1992) makes three distinctions for avoidance; (1) Learners of the L2 make anticipations or know that a problem with their construction and have a vague idea of the target construction, (2) the target is known by the L1 speaker, but it is too difficult to use in given circumstances; such as conversational topics that the L1 speaker may have a deficiency in or (3), the L1 speaker has the knowledge to correctly produce and use the L2 structure, but are unwilling to use, because it goes against the norms of their behavior.

Overproduction

L1 speaker acquiring the L2 produces certain structures within the L2 with a higher frequency than L2 native speakers, which can be a direct result of underproduction. In a study by Schachter and Rutherford (1979), they found that Chinese and Japanese speakers who wrote English sentences overproduced the 'passive voice':

• 'It is very unfortunate that...'

and sentences that contained There are/There is which suggest that there is a 'psuedo/target-like passive' proposed by Schachter (1979) as a result of the native language, L1, topic marking function appearing in the English sentences, the L2.

Miscomprehension/Misinterpretation

Differences in culture between an L1 and an L2 can affect the meaning of the message in the L2. For example, the English idiom “bought the farm” has nothing to do with literally purchasing a farm but refers to dying. A native speaker of Spanish acquiring English as a second language may have problems interpreting and comprehending this idiom due to the differences in cultures of the L1 and the L2.

Production errors

Substitution is when the L1 speak takes a structure or word from their native language and replaces in within the L2. Odlin(1989) shows a sentence from a Swedish learner of English in the following sentence.

• Swedish Structure on English:
  • But sometimes I must go bort.

Here the Swedish word bort has replaced its English equivalent away.

• Polish learner of English:
  • English think pronounced as [fink] because of the influence of the Polish accent on English pronunciation.

Calque is a direct "loan translation" where words are translated from the L2, word-for-word in the L1.

• English skyscraper literally translates in French as gratte-ciel ("scrapes-sky")
• Polish palec srodkowy literally translates to a finger middle in English.

Overdifferentiation occurs when distinctions in the L1 are carried over to the L2.

• An English L1 learner of Polish applies different vowel lengths of English (e.g. /i/ and /i:/) to their Polish due to the use of vowel distinctions in English.

Underdifferentiation occurs when speakers are unable to make distinctions in the L2.

• A Polish learner of English assumes the words borrow and lend are equivalent in meaning, since both correspond to posyzyc in Polish.

Hypercorrection is a process where the L1 speaker finds forms in the L2 they consider to be important to acquire, but these speakers do not properly understand the restrictions or exceptions to formal rules that are in the L2, which results in errors, such as the example below.

• Polish speakers of English may say: potato pronounced as [pota:to] paralleled tomato [toma:to]