Why if I speak English well…,
English speakers do not understand me
By Enrique Rojas R.
It happens every
time. A very dedicated student of English as a foreign language learns the
lexis, the structures, the grammatical rules, the expressions; in addition he
manages to demonstrate that is able to read and write in this language, but
when they get in a situation in which they have to chat with native speakers,
finds it very difficult to understand what they say, and even more grueling
trying to make himself understood by them. For heaven’s sake! Why does this
always occur?
If one were to
learn a language from another part of the world, the first thing we would try
to gain knowledge of would probably be the alphabet. In order to penetrate the
system of transmitting ideas through words, you have to become familiar with
letters, which are the main constituents of terms. Of course, it is also
possible to just memorize sounds, to get to know what they mean and become able
to produce those utterances. But we will not get to genuinely master a language
that way. And it will not be the path we will follow if we are already literate
people.
Now, when we refer
to the most common western live languages, such as English, French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese and others, we assume that we use the same alphabet for all
of them but, is this assumption true? In this space we are going to briefly
analyze the case of Spanish and English.
All of the
mentioned languages use the Latin or Roman alphabet, which is still the most
widely employed alphabetic system in the world, since it is the one used by
most of Europe and the areas settled by Europeans. It has its origin in the Etruscan
alphabet and it can be traced through Etruscan, Greek, and Phoenician scripts
to the North Semitic alphabet utilized in Syria and Palestine about 1100 BC.( Encyclopædia Britannica). The name
comes from Late Latin alphabētum, and this from the Greek ἀλφάβητος : alphábētos,
made up over ἄλφα : álpha 'alfa' y βῆτα : bêta 'beta', names of the
first Greek letters.
In the first place,
it may be convenient to define what we understand for alphabet. Encyclopædia Britannica describes it
as a “set of graphs, or characters, used to represent the phonemic structure of a language” adding that “In most
alphabets the characters are arranged in a definite order, or sequence.”
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary depicts it as “A set of letters
or symbols in a fixed order used to represent the basic set of speech sounds of a language, especially the set of
letters from A to Z.” In both definitions we clearly observe the presence of
two dimensions, a written or graphic one, and an oral, that deals with sounds.
The graphic individual components are named graphemes
and the oral ones, phonemes.
For a native Spanish speaker there is probably no reason to know that there are
languages with no one-to-one correspondence between sound and written symbol,
since in our language there is a 1-1 spelling-to-sound correspondence.(*) They
are aware that there are some differences in English pronunciation and try to
imitate the most obvious ones without suspecting there is a whole phonological
system they must become familiar with. As a consequence, they treat English
graphemes as if they were Spanish graphemes, conferring upon them the same
phonological value. Small wonder it is so difficult for them to make themselves
understood by native speakers of English. It is no surprise also that although
they can understand their peers’ English, and maybe their teachers’, they do
not come to terms with the one spoken by people who have been raised with this
tongue.
So, our suggestion to English teachers is that, right from the beginning, you
should convey to your students they have to deal with a different sound system.
(See the article Teaching
pronunciation, why is it so difficult? in
this blog). And, for goodness sake, if you want your students to read (not
to mention speak or write) you must teach them the alphabet (all of it) first.
Biodata
Enrique Rojas. Graduated in Journalism at the
PUCP, Peru, Enrique Rojas R. holds a MA in Journalism and MA in Inter American
History from Southern Illinois University, USA; an MA in Literature from
University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico, all the coursework for a MA in TEFL
at Universidad de Piura, Peru and BA in Education from Universidad Federico
Villarreal. He has also obtained Certificates of Proficiency in English both
from Cambridge University and the University of Michigan and the Diploma for EFL
Teachers from Universidad del Pacifico. He is an Oral Examiner for the
Cambridge University exams and has been awarded the title Expert in E-Learning
from Asociacion Educativa del Mediterraneo and Universidad Marcelino
Champagnat. He has worked as a professor in universities in Peru, Mexico and
the United States; as a newscaster and a producer in radio and television
stations in the United States and Mexico, and as a writer and editor in daily
newspapers of the same countries. He has been in the staff of CIDUP for 17
years teaching English and Spanish specializing in International Exams, English
for Business, ESP and Teacher Training. He is a member of the Research Area of
Centro de Idiomas de la UP.
