What English sounds like to speakers of other languages
[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY[/embedyt]
‘Skwerl’ What English sounds like to speakers of other languages – A short film in fake English. As seen on QI. A film by Brian & Karl http://www.brianandkarl.com
Skwerl
What English sounds like to speakers of other languages is a short film directed by Brian Fairbairn and “written” by himself and Karl Eccleston.
All of the dialogue in the film is complete gibberish, but it’s designed to sound like English to foreign speakers, or native speakers that aren’t quite paying attention; those familiar with English will probably find themselves slipping in and out of it in a really weird way.
The gibberish keeps in line with the common sounds in English, keeps out anything foreign-sounding and results in a weird sort of “could you repeat that for me?” effect.
The effect is similar to Hopelandic, the “language” used by Icelandic band Sigur Rós in several songs from their album Takk and is also very similar to the lyrics sang by the Cocteau Twins. The group earned much critical praise for its innovative, ethereal musical stylings and the distinctive, at times indecipherable soprano vocals of Fraser, which often seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth music.
Glossolalia or (speaking in tongues) is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables that lack any readily comprehended meaning, in some cases as part of religious practice.
The couple in “Skwerl” speak a combination of mixed-up English and nonsense words, but their meaning is very clear, due mainly to the intonation and rythme used in their speech and their facial expressions and gestures – once again proving that communication is not just a binary process of word to ear.
If a conversation contains patterns taken from English but not sensible words, do we still perceive it as English?
What is it makes up a language apart from the vocabulary and grammar ?
As the vocabulary is generally nonsense in this film, but it has little effect on our understanding (as a native speaker at least) should we be putting our efforts with learners of English as a foreign language elsewhere?
The Effects of Background Music on Learning
I was working this morning with a person to help them to improve the impact of their presentations – the person was French and the presentation are to be delivered in English.
Just before doing the presentation I set a simple task of reading a set of statements about famous inventions that nearly became flops, or how great inventions were invented by accident – Post-its and velcro etc.
As always, I have music on in the background to at least provide a small amount of ‘disturbance’, working on the idea that we are very seldom in a completely noiseless environment, background music not only provides a pleasant atmosphere, it also prepares learners for real world ‘noise’.
Every client I work with comments on it, often negatively to start with, and we often wrestle with the volume controls together as they turn it down to nothing and I crank it back up again.
I often ask learners when we get to this situation the reasons that they think I have the music on, which is in all cases an excellent activity in itself, as often they give reasons that I hadn’t thought of, but by just verbalising ‘my’ justifications, they are starting the process of accepting this ‘change’ up to the point that in the next session they don’t even notice that it is on.
I say ‘change’ as it is exactly that, the majority of learners that I meet who have in some way passed through some form of training have encountered the rigid and staid silence of the classroom and have grown to accept this as being the norm.
It is only when their received thinking is challenged – often by themselves, that they start to be ready to try something a bit different.
Now we’re not talking about revolutionary, ground-breaking change here… just background music.
So back to where I was.
The learner commented later that when the music was English music (his L2) it was easy to stay focused on the task, whereas, when the music changed to a French song (his L1), he found it disturbed his concentration and made the task very different.
Now you may say that this is a perfectly normal state of affairs as he was doing two ‘receptive’ tasks – reading and listening, I’ll go along with that, although there was a difference in his concentration levels brought about by the changes in the languages of the music.
This is not an isolated incident, I have heard this many times from other learners and whilst not discounting the comments, I have only made mental notes to have a look at what’s out there in terms of research findings or discussion on the topic.
As far as I have seen, existing research seems to support the hypothesis that certain types of instrumental music, especially slow- to medium-paced, non-percussive music, is beneficial in several learning situations.
The traditional notion that people, especially young learners, concentrate and learn best in a completely quiet environment is being challenged.
In some situations, in fact, complete quiet is nearly impossible to achieve; the sounds of construction and other natural and artificial environmental noises invade almost every aspect of day-to-day life.
Music may be effective not only at “hiding” or covering up some of these distractions, but also as a tool for enhancing the learning process.
In most research on the subject, results showed that the use of background music during learning has a beneficial effect on vocabulary and grammar learning, and that, generally, learners prefer training room background music.
It could be that reading in a foreign language utilises skills that involve the right-side of the brain whilst music stimulates the left side of the brain, producing a more holistic form of learning as neural networks are connected.
In the case of this learner, however, it could be that the lyrics of the song in his own language were more accessible to him than the text he was reading in English.
This is indeed something that I will be paying closer attention to in the future…
Shortcuts to learning a language
As you go along with your language learning try to engage yourself and connect as much as possible as many as your senses as possible – much like we do when reading.
Reading is an excellent example of the way that imagination is used to conjure up scenes, emotions, sounds, taste and feeling that we, as humans are naturally able to do – so why not try this out when listening?
Imagine the feelings and emotions that are illustrated in a listening activity and try to avoid latching-on to key words.
This is a feature that is often promoted in the classical language teaching schools – « listen for key words ».
This was something that was a feature of a school that I worked in when I first came to France, and one that I, like the learners never questioned.
Another feature, which I knew was wrong, but did not really know why at the time, was the compulsory use of the language lab, twice a day – rows of learners listening on headphones to a cassette, which they or the teacher could slow down to make it understandable for them – but a bizarre scenario that is never repeated in real life.
I mean, how often do we listen in a vacuum, in absolute silence with access to the speaker, with so much control that we can slow them right down and replay them as often as we like?
So lets get back to the original point of listening for key words in a listening activity.
I believe this is futile for several reasons :
- If you have a limited vocabulary you cannot hope to know all the vocabulary learnt so listening for key words results in you listening for words that you know with no guarantee that they are operative words or indeed important at all.
- You may not be able to distinuish between changes of speakers in a listening activity so you don’t know who is speaking at any given time.
- Different accents may have different word stress and inflection patterns, so some things that may sound like an affirmation may turn out to be a question and the reverse is also true.
- If you listen out for detail you will completely lose the thread and the real meaning of the dialogue. Listen out for background sounds and changes of place, time, speakers etc. treating listening to a dialogue as you would watching a play where scenes change according to the actions that occur.
You will have a better chance of ultimately understanding if you are able to actually hear the sounds used in the language and it is in this order that we learn – HEAR > UNDERSTAND.
Spend some time tuning your ears to sounds and rhythms. You can do this by listening to the language as much as possible via the radio, TV, movies and native speakers if possible.
Recite aloud, imitate native speakers, observe and experiment as much as possible, here we can see that the adage « good speakers are poor listeners » is untrue in foreign languages , a good listener will inevitably become a good speaker.
Try to vary activities that you do as much as possible – the most effective learners use a variety of techniques and strategies in whatever they do.
Your memory works best by using a plethora of images, smells sights and sounds that trigger feelings from a distant past – do you remember the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen ? Imagine biting into a lemon ! You can almost taste it as your memory taps into different sensory zones.
You can often remember people and places and what you did when you hear a certain song or piece of music.
These techniques work really when learning, by underpinning experience with trigger mechanisms.
You could also describe what you see in front of you in the language you are learning – learning by doing !
Going back to the idea of listening for key words, try instead, of listening out for key notions, these give us ideas of how the language is being used and more importantly, why it is being used.
Language is all about functions – we communicate to do something, what is the function or the why of the communication.
We can all recognise that linear listening – that is listening to every word in a linear sequence doesn’t always work in our own native language – we often disconnect, think about other things or try to interpret meaning – the good question to ask here is, “why, then, do we do this in a foreign language?”
I guess the obvious response is that we are trying to hold on to what we know (or think we know) but the result is that we are often listening from an illogical angle.
The problem comes to a head when fast speakers, or speakers with strong regional or national accents are encountered – but, as we have seen, we have choices.
People who find language learning easy often follow simple rules that they have acquired unconsciously and are almost natural language learners.
This is often called natural learning skills, or acquisition, and is very close to the way that the mother tongue is learnt.
Many adults however, feel that they need a clear structure and need to understand how a language is built before they are able to learn.
Many adults are not ready or willing to learn a language in a similar way that they learnt their mother tongue as this entails mimic, repetition and making more mistakes than they are ready to make, which children don’t always experience in language learning.
Many adults focus on the wrong things in language learning such as their accent before pronunciation, their correct grammar construction before being able to fully understand and react to spontaneous questions – the list is very long !
We could argue that we are all hard-wired to communicate and learn languages but this doesn’t really answer the question as to why some people find language learning difficult and laborious.
One of the many answers to this is the ineffective strategies used in language learning – but a lot of people use good strategies, and learners who use great strategies for learning are often unable to use these similar strategies in language learning.
Any successful learner uses clear, pragmatic, logical, personalised and conscious strategies that facilitate learning – if you are learning anything at the moment, take a moment to consider your strategies – both those that are effective and those that work – are you ready to change the ineffective strategies?
Is there a difference between Accent and Pronunciation in Language Learning?
Have you ever spoken with a foreign learner who has said that they are terrified to speak English as, in their words, “I have a bad accent.”
Have you ever spoken about this and it turns out that they were told this by their teachers in school, which is not uncommon here in France, apparently – the premise being that it is better not to attempt to speak because of a “bad accent” rather than attempt to speak and reveal your “bad accent” to the world.
Is there a difference between accents and pronunciation, if indeed there is a difference – linguists appear to be generally ambiguous between the two, so I’ll set out what I understand to be where the differences lie.
I must state that I get by quite well in French, but I have an accent that immediately gives me away as being English and I don’t really want to change this, as it is sometimes an asset in certain situations.
This said, I firmly believe that accents can be left as they are, as long as pronunciation is understandable.
The word “accent” comes from the Latin, ‘Ad Cantus’ meaning singing, I won’t go into the various dictionary definitions, but we can all recognise that accent has a lot to do with identity – where a person comes from, in all meanings of the term – country, region, class, social status etc.
So what goes into the make-up of an accent?
Accents are what we acquire as we are growing up, from our parents peers and friends – as children we learn by imitation of what we hear, reproducing the sounds of our language based on models that we are surrounded by.
An accent can reveal identity, belonging to a particular social class and can be adapted to fit in with the group or social class of our choosing – accents help us to fit in with our peer group and can be modified to achieve this.
One of the aspects of pronunciation is accent, patterns of pronunciation and intonation which form a discrete entity that we call a particular accent, which can be on a macro and micro level, from region, or even village, to a national accent – which sounds absurd.
Cultural stereotypes can be consolidated and confirmed by accent, which can often go hand-in-hand with mannerisms assumed to be located in a certain nationality – the Gallic shrug being one example that strikes a tone with British people.
But, do we need to be able to imitate a Gallic shrug if we are speaking French in order to speak with a French accent.
The French, by the way are not aware of the “Gallic Shrug”, another example of stereotyping, along with the additions of “Oh la la’s” that nourish the assumed stereotype.
Without going off on a long tangent, I consider that accent is a blend of pronunciation, inflections, idiosyncracies, and even sounds such as ‘huh’ ‘ahh’, ‘arr’ etc., in English, ‘ben’ and ‘hein’ etc., in French – although being able to use and place the sounds used by natives accurately, is more a mark of fluency than accent and the two are not interlinked.
I am not saying that accent and pronunciation are the same thing, but they are so closely linked that it is difficult to give a ‘cut-and-dried’ definition and to map-out the boundaries of the two.
A strong accent in your mother tongue (L1), can make understanding very difficult, if not virtually impossible when speaking a foreign language (L2), but this is more linked to pronunciation than accent.
Take the pronunciation of the following in English : ‘Th’, ‘Sh’, the ‘ed’ sounds in past verbs such as, “wanted”, “worked” and “travelled” – three different pronunciations of the same two letters: ‘id’, ‘t’ and ‘d’.
The English pronunciation of ‘national’, ‘centre’, ‘origine’ and ‘prononciation’ in French throws up similar challenges, which supports my theory that people cannot hope to pronounce words in a foreign language without having clearly heard it first – and by ‘clearly’ I mean what was actually sounded and not what we think we hear.
Words that are similar in our own L1 to that of an L2 are even more difficult to pronounce, due to the fact that the model in our L1 is firmly rooted in our brains – it is a habit, that is very difficult to eradicate.
Pronunciation is linked to articulation, being able to move the mouth and tongue to produce the words, but also to intonation and syllable stress. In simple terms, an accent is a pattern of pronunciation, whereas, pronunciation is articulation and the way that words are spoken – confused yet?
To illustrate this point, have a look at Dick Van Dyke’s idea of a cockney accent from the musical “Mary Poppins” – note that this an anglophone speaking with English being his L1.
He actually did a better accent in the film when he played the old bank manager, but this tells us a lot about accents.
Take a look at Brad Pitt playing an Irish gypsy in the film, “Snatch”, where his accent, I am told, is spot-on.
As we can see, certain people are able to reproduce an accent to near perfection – there are also people who can reproduce their idea of a foreign accent in their own language that is recognised by others who speak their language as being accurate – an example that springs to mind is the British comedy “‘Allo, ‘Allo” – although the accent is unrecognised by French speakers and when used in French produces a strange sounding accent, very far from any French accent that exists.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3M8cj70vs[/embedyt]
This is again, an example of stereotyping, as innocent as it may be.
Allo, ‘Allo, was never a success in France – which is not really a surprise (nor a disaster), but it is mainly due to the fact that the stereotypes which make the comedy work, are not so easily recogniseable in French as they are in English.
As far as accents go, people often talk about others having a ‘good’ accent.
What do they mean by this?
Good for who? Compared to what?
The answer is that they often mean that it is an accent that they can easily understand – this being linked to second language speakers.There is no goo or bad accent, the reality is, that there is no standard accent in English.
It was once said that the purest form of Queen’s English was spoken in Scotland, around Inverness. However, today, linguists talk about “Englishes” or varieties of English, rather than “English” as a separate and identifiable entity.
The idea that one form of English exists is misguided, due to the “plasticity” and evolutionary nature of language – it is always changing by way of its sponge-like nature, where influences, modes and technology are changing language at a lightning pace, language is constantly evolving.
Other problems that L2 speakers have with accents and pronunciation are that they often speak too fast to be understood, syllable and word stress are altered, vowel sounds are deformed and rythmn and intonation are often linked to their own L1 and not the L2.
An example of word stress changing the meaning of a sentences:
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” can be read and interpreted in many ways, word stress can help us to get more of an understanding of the speaker’s intention however, have a look at the way this can be transformed by the stress falling on the bold words in the sentence.
As it stands, the sentence can be interpreted as the speaker not liking football, but this is only interpreted meaning and is not always guaranteed to be accurate of the speakers intentions, look how it can change:
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – Somebody else will or I would never watch a match on TV.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – I insist that I will not.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – I will be playing instead or I will be at the stadium in person.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – Not the big match, but another one.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – Not the football, but the rugby match, but I will watch it on TV.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – I will be at the stadium to see it live.
“I won’t watch the football match on television tonight.” – I will record it and watch it in the morning.
A good tip for language learners is to note down the way words are said – thus working their ability to hear sounds in another language – phonetically, or at least the way in which they hear them, which can be very different to the way they are written.
The main reason for this is to remove the “parasitic” barriers of the L1 and to realise that the link between the written word and the spoken word is very much anchored in the pronunciation of the L1 and not the L2.
Examples of this are abundant and it is often curious to be corrected by a French native speaker when pronouncing an English word that has worked its way into the French language, but which is pronounced differently, generally because the stress and syllable pattern has changed, but also because the vowels are sounded as they are in French and not English.
Take for example “Rugby – Roohg-bee”, “Management – mahn – ahj-mon”, and “Thriller – Sree – lair” – sometimes unrecogniseable by English speakers, and when spoken back with the ‘correct’ English pronunciation can be equally difficult for French speakers to understand.
Some people will never get rid of their accent in a foreign language, and why should they? Do not despair, it is not a bad thing.
I know two people from Portsmouth in the UK, who, when speaking French, I can clearly hear their ‘Pompey’ accent, but French people often say that they have no accent when speaking French – perhaps there are certain accents that can easily be ‘lost’ in a second language – I haven’t heard the same with many French speakers, though.
Research shows that the age for true bilingualism is thresholded at around 14 years of age – which does not mean that they cannot reach a very high level of language competency, but there is a high possibility that they will never get rid of their L1 accent.
I would suggest that efforts are made less on accent eradication and more on listening skills and pronunciation – accents are charming at times, but bad pronunciation forms a barrier to understanding and ultimately, communication.
In short, accents tell us things about people – where they come from, their social group etc. – whilst pronunciation helps us to understand them, or at least what they are saying.
