The Secret of English Pronunciation
By Enrique Rojas R.
Why is English so difficult to
understand for foreign speakers? Do English native speakers really talk as fast
as students reckon? Why is it so difficult to pronounce in an intelligible manner?
We have all
probably heard this complaint from our students who allege they can understand the English spoken in class
and they can comprehend their teacher’s English. But that doesn’t happen when
in front of a native speaker. They express
they cannot attain the grasp of what it is said by them. And be able to make
themselves understood becomes a mission impossible. The English speakers do not
seem to recognize a great deal of the words they utter. But then, is it not
taking English lessons about understanding the language as spoke by the natural
users of it and be understood by them? And, worse yet, the experience leads
them to wonder: “What is being taught to
us?” A Latin or Peruvian version of the language of Shakespeare?
One of the
great difficulties of this language is that it cannot be read the way we are
used to reading. The letters in the alphabet have two dimensions, the graphic
one and the aural one. According to this apportionment they are called
graphemes and phonemes. Our speakers are used to a one to one correspondence
between graphics and sound, which mean that each symbol represents a specific
sound or phoneme. But although that is true in Spanish, it does not happen in
English. The same pictogram, for example a vowel, can represent five different
sounds.
The worst
part is that this bizarre sound system is not formally taught to English
learners. Not in vain is the teaching of pronunciation widely called “the
Cinderella of English Teaching”. The result is that students tend to assign letters
the same sound they have in Spanish or, in the best of cases, to identify them
with the phonemes they believe are the corresponding to those symbols in
English. Considering this, it is a small wonder that their pronunciation is far
from the correct one and therefore their messages do not arrive in a very understandable
manner to the native speakers’ ears. By the same token, the variety of sounds that
comes out of their own mouths is hardly recognizable and decoded acceptably by
learners.
Other problems are reductions and
contracted speech, so much part of the English language. These phenomena are other
obstacles for apprentices and the main reason why, in the words of Betty Azar,
one of the most famous writers of English textbooks in the world, normal speech
may seem for the tenderfoot that it “speeds like a bullet train” and that it
may leave them feeling “a
little dazed as they try to
catch the meaning” (Azar, 2015).
All of these
issues will be dealt with in the 10th Latin American Congress for
the Teaching of Languages. See you there!
What do you
think, is it true that native English speakers speak really fast? Or it just
seems like that for the untrained ears?
When an American
or English person mispronounces Spanish, we still can understand them. Why
can’t they understand us when our pronunciation is not so good?
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
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.
