One of the more interesting types of errors is what is referred to in the literature as the "shared-translation effect." This is when there is a word in L1 that has more than one translation into L2, and the speaker picks the "wrong" one when speaking L2. For example, the word כלי, keli, in Hebrew can mean either a tool, a container/vessel, or a utensil. A straightforward example of this I had is when my son Moshe (8.5 years old) saw a moving truck parked in front of an uninhabited house on our block, and asked: "Someone is passing there?" Besides for the misplacement of the word "is," also under the influence of Hebrew, the usage of the word "passing" is a result of the shared translation effect, as the word עובר, o'ver, in Hebrew can mean either to move homes or to pass someone or something.
A much more convoluted example is when Miryam (12.5 years old) opened the refrigerator and said: "The fridge is plain." It took a bit of detective work, but what happened here was that there wasn't much food in the fridge that morning (shopping day) and she meant to say that the fridge was empty. When offered a roll to eat, one can have it with something in it, e.g., peanut butter, or one can have it plain. In Hebrew, the way to say a plain roll would be לחמניה ריקה, lahmania reika. The word ריק, reik(a), also has the meaning of empty. Hence, an empty fridge is a "plain fridge."
