Each language has its own internal logic and structure. What is correct in one may not be necessarily correct in another. Avoid unnecessary errors by thinking in the same language in which you are writing.
I have had errors that are direct results of failing to follow the above advise (in addition to my struggle with my ongoing struggle with prepositions). I am fairly accustomed to thinking in English by now. In fact, I've been doing that since my early days of my Canadian life. But I still find myself falling into the trap of making English statements that can only be understood if one also understood Tigrigna. This may even be apparent in some of my writings on this blog.
I noticed during my stay in Quebec that, even though many of the tourist information materials there were printed in French and English, the English part was not readily understandable. Here is a classic example from a French-langauge offering university in Quebec:
Our summer intensive 3 and 5 - week programs begin in July. Those programs are offered to 18-year old, and older, and are opened to university students, teachers, business people, retired people or anyone wishing to improve his-her proficiency in French. Since all levels are offered from real beginners to very advanced, you will find a class corresponding to your proficiency in French.
For a more complete learning of French, in addition to the 20 hours spent in classroom every week, you will participate in a wide variety of socio-cultural activities. There are also tourist activities on weekends which will be offered on an optional basis.
Besides classes and extracurricular activities, you will live in French with a francophone host family (or on campus at the university residence) where you will experiment some aspects about the culture of Quebec. This will make your immersion a total immersion.
I think how you communicate in one language is a lot more than in what language you "think." A friend, who was at that time new to Canada, once told me that his native English speaking classmates remarked that he "speaks as if he is reading a book." We agreed then that it was because he speaks as if reading a book because he learned English through reading books. He comes from a school system that emphasizes a lot on the grammar and structure of English, but does little to encourage spoking in English. Missing from his (and my) vocabulary were the words and phrases that are the most often used in everyday Canadian English (I remember realizing how important it was to practice common words and phrases in my Early Canadian days, when I had emails to my cousins with as many of the new words as possible -- one email had most of its sentences ending with "and stuff", another was littered with "you guys".)
