Fixing the "same with you" mistake Korean students make
Korean students often say "My idea is same with yours" instead of "the same as yours." The mix-up comes straight from Korean grammar, and once students hear why, the fix sticks fast.
Park English2026-11-072 min read
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Listen to a Korean high schooler compare two things in English and you'll hear it within a minute: "My bag is same with yours." "We have same opinion." "It's same, right?" Three different slips, one cause.
Why this happens
In Korean, the word for "to be the same" is 같다 (gatda). To compare two things, you attach it to a particle, 와 or 과, that can mean "and" or "with" depending on the sentence. So when a student mentally translates "내 가방은 네 가방과 같아" word by word, their brain reaches for "with" because that's the particle's other job. English, though, needs "as" for this kind of comparison, not "with." On top of that, Korean has no articles, so "the" quietly disappears too. That's two problems stacked in one short sentence, which is exactly why this error is so sticky.
You can explain it to students in one line: "Korean uses one small word that can mean 'with' or 'and.' English splits that job between different words, and for comparisons we use 'as.' Your brain picks 'with' first because that's the habit. We're going to break it."
The quick reference
| What students say | What they mean | Natural English |
|---|---|---|
| My phone is same with yours. | 내 폰은 네 폰과 같아 | My phone is the same as yours. |
| We have same opinion. | 우리는 같은 의견이야 | We have the same opinion. |
| It's same. | 똑같아 | It's the same. |
| This is similar with that. | 이것은 저것과 비슷해 | This is similar to that. |
Note the last row: "similar" has the identical trap, just with "to" instead of "as." Worth mentioning once students have "same as" down, so they don't swap one habit for another.
Drills, easy to hard
- Fill in the blank (easy). "My shoes are the same ___ yours." (as)
- Choose the right word (easy-medium). "Our test scores are the same ___with / as___ last week."
- Fix the sentence (medium). "Her phone case is same with mine." (student rewrites)
- Combine two sentences (medium-hard). "I like K-pop. My friend likes K-pop too." (Join using "the same as.")
- Free comparison (hard). Students compare two real things (their school and a friend's, two singers, two foods) in two full sentences using "the same as" and "different from."
Run them in order in one class. The jump from drill 3 to 4 is where most classes slow down, because now students have to build the sentence instead of just fixing one, so give that step extra time before moving on.
One thing to admit: students will still say "same with" under pressure, especially in speaking, for weeks after they've mastered it on paper. That's normal. Written drills fix it on the page faster than it fixes itself in speech.