Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

The following is a list of common non-native pronunciations English-speakers make when trying to pronounce foreign languages. Much of it is due to transfer of phonological rules from English to the new language as well as differences in grammar and syntax that they encounter.

This article uses International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation. See IPA chart for English for an introduction.

Contents

[edit] Finnish

  • Speakers may speak too formally; written Finnish is so formal that it is awkward when spoken in casual conversation and speakers may not recognize the distinction.
    • e.g. “hyvää päivää, nimeni on Jaakko” (written), rather than “terve, mun nimi on Jaakko” (spoken).
  • Speakers may also overuse "kiitos" (thank you, please) and "ole hyvä" (please) in an attempt to be polite. In Finnish, politeness is given by the level of speech formality.
  • English has no front rounded vowels and speakers may have difficulty with Finnish /y/ and /ø/, as well as any diphthongs that include these vowels.
  • Speakers may make certain spelling pronunciations causing them to pronounce orthographic <ee> as [iː], <ä> as [ɑː], and <oo> as [uː].
  • Some speakers have difficulty with the trilled /r/ since this is not an English sound.
  • English speakers often have difficulties with the accusative and partitive cases, since English has no such cases and speakers are rarely aware of the distinction.
    • Some verbs require the usage of the accusative or partitive affixes as part of the verb; this can be easily forgotten.
  • Speakers may have difficulty with consonant gradation, so Helsingin sounds like Helsinkin and pankia like pankkia.
  • Speakers may have difficulty with vowel length and gemination; i.e. tuli (/tu'li/ fire) and tulli (/tu'lːi/, customs) may both be [tʊli]. Speakers aren't likely to have trouble with tuuli (/tuː'li/, wind) but the precise length and phonetic quality may be different enough to be confusing to native speakers.
  • Difficulty with pluralization (the partitive case is used to pluralise numbered nouns, rather than a standard plural). i.e. kaksi autot, rather than kaksi autoa.
  • See also: Finnish phonology

[edit] French

  • Difficulty with nasalized vowels, e.g. an (year), sounds more like [ɑ̃ːn] rather than [ɑ̃].
  • English has no front rounded vowels and speakers may have difficulty with French /y/, /ø/, and /œ/.
  • Difficulty distinguishing /ɛj/, /ei/ and /e/, likely making abeille ("honey bee"), abbaye ("abbey"), and abbé ("abbot") all pronounced [ə'beɪ].
  • The voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ may be pronounced as an affricate; English speakers rarely make a distinction between the two.
  • French <ch> represents the equivalent of English <sh>. English speakers may commit a spelling pronunciation error and say [ʧ] instead of [ʃ].
  • The French rhotic is trilled in French and usually a uvular /ʁ/, English speakers tend to use the approximant [ɹ].
  • Speakers may uniformly use dans and en or mix them up, because both translate as "in" in English.
  • The word de means both the partitive, (some/any) and the preposition, (from/to); however, it inflects differently depends on which one. Du, de la, de l' and des for the partitve and du/de, de, d' and des for the preposition.
  • Although nous is the second person plural pronoun in Standard French, its use may come off as too formal since colloquial varieties are more likely to use on. See French personal pronouns.
  • Difficulty with liaison, where the final consonant is silent unless followed by a word with an initial vowel. Thus, un savant Anglais ("a wise Englishman") and un savant anglais ("an English scholar") sound the same (Schane, 11).
  • Although rare, speakers may forget that orthographic <h> is always silent in French.
  • Speakers may not include determiners like le or la as often as is appropriate, such as when showing the object of a sentence.
  • English has very little grammatical gender. As a result, mistakes may arise with the French gender system:
    • mon and ton (possessive adjectives "my" and "your" respectively) apply to feminine nouns if they start with a vowel, English speakers may forget and say ma and ta, which are the feminine forms before words beginning in consonants.
    • Feminine and masculine articles, especially for inanimate objects, have to be memorized and speakers may mix them up. e.g. "le main" instead of "la main" (the hand), "la pont" instead of "le pont", "le douleur" instead of "la douleur" (the pain), etc.
    • Speakers may have difficulty with gender and number agreement in adjectives. e.g. "la maison blanc" instead of "la maison blanche" (the white house), "les fleurs rouge" instead of "les fleurs rouges" (the red flowers), etc.
  • Beginning speakers may transfer usage of English auxiliary "be" and use "être" to reflect a continuous aspect, as in "Je suis aller au magasin" instead of "Je vais au magasin" (I am going to the mall). In this example, je vais can mean one of three things: I am going, I go, and I do go.

See also: French phonology

[edit] German

  • Many English speakers have difficulty with the voiceless velar fricative (written <ch>). They may instead pronounce it as [ʧ] (because of spelling) or [k].
  • Many English speakers also have difficulty with the voiceless palatal fricative (also written <ch>). For this reason, they may pronounce ich ("I") as [ɪʃ] rather than [ɪç].
  • German <z> represents the affricate /ʦ/. English speakers may commit a spelling pronunciation error and say [z] instead of [ʦ]. Or, conversely, some English speakers hypercorrect and have trouble prouncing [z] when it is close to a [ʦ]: "zusammen" - German: [ʦuˈzamən], Anglophone: [ʦuˈʦamən].
  • English speakers may mix up <ie> and <ei> due to their pronunciations in English spelling and thus incorrectly pronounce die ("the", feminine) as the English word "die". This may also cause the humorous mistake of pronouncing schießen ("to shoot") as scheißen ("to defecate, to shit").
  • English has no front rounded vowels and speakers may have difficulty with German /y/, /ʏ/, /ø/, and /œ/.
  • English has very little grammatical gender. As a result, mistakes may arise with the German gender system:
    • Masculine, feminine, and neuter articles, especially for inanimate objects, have to be memorized and speakers may mix them up. e.g. "das Tisch" instead of "der Tisch" (the table).
    • Speakers may have difficulties with gender and number agreement in adjectives. e.g. "das weiß Haus" instead of "das weiße Haus" (the white house), "die grün Blumen" instead of "die grünen Blumen" (the green flowers), etc.
  • English speakers often have difficulties with the accusative and dative cases, since English has no such cases (except in pronouns) and speakers are rarely aware of the distinction.
    • e.g. accusative: "der weiße Tisch" instead of "den weißen Tisch" (the white table), etc.
    • e.g. dative: "das weiße Haus" instead of "dem weißen Haus" (the white house), "die roten Blumen" instead of "den roten Blumen" (the red flowers), etc.

See also: German phonology

[edit] Portuguese

  • Although rare, speakers may forget that orthographic <h> is always silent in Portuguese (like in French and Spanish).
  • Difficulty with nasalized vowels, especially the nasal diphthongs /ɐ̃ũ/ (as in João, pão etc.) and /ɐ̃ĩ/ (as in Magalhães, mãe etc.).
  • Speakers may have trouble distinguishing between similar Portuguese diphthongs like /ei/ and /ɛi/, /oi/ and /ɔi/, and /eu/ and /ɛu/.
  • Speakers may have difficulty with stressed vowel alternations such as novo [novu] (new, sing.) versus novos [nɔvuʃ] (new, plural).
  • Speakers may have difficulty with the various realizations of Portuguese /r/. See Guttural R in Portuguese.
  • English has very little grammatical gender. As a result, mistakes may arise with the Portuguese gender system:
    • Feminine and masculine articles, especially for inanimate objects, have to be memorized and speakers may mix them up, e.g. "o mão" instead of "a mão" (the hand), "o ponte" instead of "a ponte" (the bridge), "o dor" instead of "a dor" (the pain), etc.
    • Speakers may have difficulty with gender and number agreement in adjectives, e.g. "a casa branco" instead of "a casa branca" (the white house), "as flores vermelha" instead of "as flores vermelhas" (the red flowers), etc.
    • The word for "thank you" is different for men and women, "obrigado" when the speaker is a man and "obrigada" when the speaker is a woman. Many speakers may choose the wrong one.
  • Speakers may not include determiners like "o" or "a" as often as appropriate, especially before certain geographic toponyms. For example, Anglophones tend to say "Ele nasceu em Rio de Janeiro " (He was born in Rio de Janeiro) instead of the correct "Ele nasceu no Rio de Janeiro". In European and southeastern Brazilian Portuguese, the articles "o" and "a" are also required before a proper name, e.g. "A Maria é..." (rather than "Maria é..."), and before a possessive adjective, e.g. "Falei com o teu pai" (rather than "Falei com teu pai").

See also: Portuguese phonology

[edit] Russian

  • Speakers are likely to have difficulty with Russian's extensive palatalization system. Instead of palatalized sounds they may produce a C+[j]:
    • Speakers of English dialects that have undergone yod-dropping may have more difficulty with /tʲ/, /dʲ/, /sʲ/, /zʲ/, and /nʲ/ (coronal consonants) than other speakers.
    • Most speakers have little difficulty with /fʲ/ and /vʲ/.
  • Some speakers have difficulty with the trilled /r/ in Russian, especially the palatalized /rʲ/ since neither are phonemes in English (Jones & Ward, 185).
    • Non-rhotic speakers, even after learning rolled-r, are prone to omit /r/ in such Russian words as /u'dar/ удар ("blow") and /'gorkə/ горка ("hillock") (Jones & Ward, 181).
  • Speakers may forget to devoice consonants in word-final positions or in other phonetic environments.
  • Difficulty distinguishing retroflexes with alveolopalatals. In addition, speakers usually pronounce /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ as [ʃ] and [ʒ], which may then sound like /ɕ/ and /ʑ/ to native speakers.
  • Depending on the speaker's dialect, they may have difficulty with “dark l” (that is, velarized /l/) in positions other than in the syllable coda (Jones & Ward, 168).
  • Speakers may have difficulty with the voiceless velar fricative and instead pronounce it as [h].
  • Speakers may have trouble with consonant clusters that do not exist in English such as /tʲma/ тьма ("darkness"), /ʐdʲatʲ/ ждать ("to wait"), /tknul/ ткнул ("prodded"), /fsʲɪg'da/ всегда ("always"), /mnoj/ мной ("me", instrumental), and /'vzmorʲjə/ взморье ("sea-shore"). Most likely, they will insert an epinthetic schwa.
  • Difficulty with Russian vowels:
    • Most dialects have no /ɨ/ (although it is an allophone in some dialects) and speakers generally have difficulty producing the sound (Jones & Ward, 33). They may instead produce [ɪ].
    • Speakers may replace /e/ with the diphthong in day. e.g. ['deɪ.lə] instead of /'dʲe.lə/ дело ("affair"). (Jones & Ward, 41).
    • Speakers are likely to diphthongize /u/, making /sʲɪ'ʐu/ сижу (I sit) sound more like [sʲɪ'ʒʊu]. Some speakers may also universally front it to [ʉ] (Jones & Ward, 64) .
    • Speakers may also diphthongize /i/ in a similar fashion, especially in open syllables (Jones & Ward, 30)
    • Speakers may have difficulty with Russian /o/, pronouncing it as either [ɔ] or the diphthong in boat (Jones & Ward, 56)
    • It is likely that speakers will make the second element of Russian diphthongs insufficiently close to resemble English diphthongs (e.g, [druzʲeɪ] instead of [druzʲej]) or pronounce it too long (Jones & Ward, 75).
    • Speakers may pronounce /a/ as [æ] in closed syllables так ("so") and /ɑ/ in open syllables два ("two") (Jones & Ward, 47).
  • Speakers may also have difficulty with the Russian vowel reduction system as well as other allophonic vowels.
    • Speakers generally fail to front /u/ and /o/ to [ʉ] and [ɵ], respectively, between palatalized consonants.
    • Tendency to reverse the distribution of [ʌ] and [ə]. English speakers tend to pronounce [ə] in the pretonic position, right where [ʌ] is required in Russian, while they pronounce [ʌ] in pre-pretonic positions, where [ə] occurs. Thus speakers may say [gʌlə'va] instead of /gəlʌ'va/ голова ("head") and [stʌrə'na] instead of /stərʌ'na/ сторона ("side") (Jones & Ward, 55).
  • Speakers may forget that orthographic <ё> (as well as <е> sometimes) is an o-sound.
  • There are no cues to indicate correct stress in Russian. Speakers must memorize where primary and secondary stress resides in each word and are likely to make mistakes (Jones & Ward, 212).
  • Speakers tend to forget to geminate double consonants (Jones & Ward, 214).

See also: Russian phonology

[edit] Spanish

  • Like French, speakers may occasionally forget that orthographic <h> is silent.
  • Speakers are likely to pronounce /x/ (as in "México" and "trabajo") as [h] (a number of Spanish dialects do this as well).
  • Some speakers have difficulty with the trilled /r/ since this is not a phoneme in English.
    • Some speakers may fail to distinguish between the trilled /r/ and the tapped /ɾ/, making word pairs like carro (car) and caro (expensive) homophones.
    • Non-rhotic speakers often omit /ɾ/ in words like carne (meat) and tercer (third).
  • Many speakers are liable to use English vowel qualities for Spanish ones (like [ʊu] instead of /u/), particularly word-finally.
  • Speakers may not pronounce voiced stops (/b/ /d/ /g/) as fully voiced. They may also fail to pronounce them as approximants or fricatives between vowels and word-finally (in such positions, /b/ is realized as [β], /d/ as [ð], and /g/ as [ɣ].
  • Speakers may pronounce orthographic B as [b] and orthographic V as [v]. In Spanish these two letters represent a single /b/ phoneme with an allophone [β].
  • English speakers frequently split diphthongs into two distinct vowels, pronouncing words like tienes ("you have") as [tʰiːˈɛ.nɪs] instead of [ˈt̪je.n̪es] and jueves ("Thursday") as [huːˈɛvɪs] insted of [xwe.βes] (notice that this changes the number of syllables).
  • In unstressed syllables, English speakers are very likely to merge /i/ and /e/ to [ɪ]: pintar /pin'tar/ becomes [pɪn'taɹ]. Even more commonly, speakers are likely to reduce unstressed /a/ to [ə]: gracias /'gɾa.θjas/ becomes ['gɹɑ.si.əs].
  • In Castilian Spanish, C and Z represent /θ/. This sound has merged with /s/ in other dialects. English speakers tend to treat these letters as they are used in English so that cintura ("waist") and zapata ("shoe") are pronounced [sɪnˈtɚ.ə] and [zəˈpɑ.tə] respectively rather than [θinˈtu.ɾa] and [θaˈpa.ta]. They also may pronounce rosa ("rose") as ['ɹo.zɑ].
  • English speakers are likely to pronounce /t/ and /d/ as alveolar [t] and [d], respectively, instead of the dental [t̪] and [d̪] which a native speaker would use.
  • Speakers may place adjectives before a noun rather than after.
  • Speakers may uniformly use por and para or mix them up, because both translate as "for" in English.
  • Speakers may uniformly use ser and estar (and their conjugated forms) or mix them up, because both translate as "to be" in English.
  • English has very little grammatical gender. As a result, mistakes may arise with the Spanish gender system:
    • Feminine and masculine articles, especially for inanimate objects, have to be memorized and speakers may mix them up, especially for nonintuitive genders. e.g. "el mano" instead of "la mano" (the hand), "la puente" instead of "el puente" (the bridge), "la dolor" instead of "el dolor" (the pain), etc.
    • Speakers may have difficulty with gender and number agreement in adjectives. e.g. "la casa blanco" instead of "la casa blanca" (the white house), "los flores roja" instead of "las flores rojas" (the red flowers), etc.

See also: Spanish phonology.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Jones, Daniel & Ward, Dennis (1969). The Phonetics of Russian. Cambridge University Press.
  • Schane, Sanford A. (1968). French Phonology and Morphology. M.I.T. Press.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/n/g/Anglophone_pronunciation_of_foreign_languages.html"