> It is possible that they don't speak English as a first language
This is more of a fun side note: It's more likely that they're a native speaker. People who learn English as a second language generally don't make the their/there mix up.
Other keyboards are seriously annoying by either not having prediction, putting them behind late T9s or they have predictions which seems to be made by someone who almost actively try to make me look stupid.
English is the only language I know and my international friends take great pleasure in correcting my grammatical errors. I've learned a great deal about my mother tongue from them!
I observed that too on myself (English is my second language), and I even wrote comments like that in the past, but after 20 years I noticed that I started making those errors myself, which sucks.
I'm guessing when you read people making this mistake over and over (I even saw it done in news articles) I guess your brain starts equating them together :(
I'm thankful for those people correcting it, although I think it is a losing battle.
That is a fun side note :) Do you have a source for this? I'd love to read more about it. I assume it's because when you're actually taught this specifically, you remember it, as opposed to native speakers who "learn" the spelling via osmosis or something.
Native speakers learn the language at a time when they can't read or write, so they have to rely on their listening. Non-native speakers on the other hand usually first see the language written down, and then hear / pronounce it, and connect the writing with what they hear.
If I had a penny for every time a native speaker wrote "would of" instead of "would have" in forums, I'd be a billionaire. "Their" / "They're" / "There" is also common.
But the funny thing is, I noticed I would make similar errors after being immersed in a native environment after a few years time. Somehow I just say to myself what I wanted to write, and the slip-up happens. So native speakers are more prone to this, but it's not only there privilege!
I observed it on myself, although after some time I started doing it too.
My belief was that it's because English is not spelled the same way it sounds, so people who learn it are forced to memorize pronunciation and writing separately.
This is more of a fun side note: It's more likely that they're a native speaker. People who learn English as a second language generally don't make the their/there mix up.