Native disturbance – first language interference and Hebrew/English errors

 

[Two adjacent clocks with different times*]

As anybody that has lived a foreign language or spent significant time with foreigners can attest, the native language creates challenges in fully mastering a foreign language. These interference errors often seem to be more resolute than the ability and desire to stop making them.  In many cases, non-native speakers never succeed in removing these inappropriate borrowings. Having lived in Israel for 32 years (immigrating on this date in 1989) and taught English to Israelis for the same period, I have experienced and observed certain error patterns in my Hebrew and the English of my students. These errors include sounds, gender issues and syntax constructions. Some of them are less critical than others but definitely mark the origin of the speaker.

[Sound space network]

The sounds of the different language family groups vary, making it difficult for learners, especially adult ones, to pronounce or distinguish certain letters. For Americans and Brits in Israel, the most common confusion is between alef א and ayin ע, which are pronounced [a] and [aa], respectively. Fortunately, most native Hebrew speakers tend to blur the difference, taking foreigners off the hook. On a more serious note are the Hebrew letters hay ה, het ח and chof כ,ף, with the first a soft h sound and the other two a guttural ch. The correct pronunciation distinguishes lah לה, meaning to her, from lach לך, to you. By contrast, Israelis struggle with distinguishing short and long vowels. For example, Israeli pronunciation of the word feet and sheet often more closely resembles fit and shit, which are neither homonyms nor synonyms. It is possible to train the mouth to properly pronounce these sounds but this improvement takes sustained effort.

[couple]

Hebrew, being a Semitic language, makes gender/number agreement an essential aspect of its structure while English is limited to natural gender. This requirement for grammatical agreement leads to repeated errors by English speaking expats living in Israel. They sometimes simply forget to pay attention to the gender of the noun and randomly use the masculine or feminine form of the adjective and sometimes the verb, frequently immediately correcting it at the end of the sentence. The effect of such errors is a lack of aesthetics but fundamentally does not prevent understanding. More embarrassingly, the Hebrew word for you is different for men and women, whether in the singular in plural form, specifically אתה [ata] and אתם [atem] for men and את [at] and אתן [aten] for women. English speakers don’t always remember to think before speaking and use the wrong form. Sharing a house with women, I tend to use at even when I should use ata and end up sounding rather stupid. The 2^nd person command form also has masculine and feminine forms, with the same result.  Native Hebrew speakers have an equally difficult time removing gender. They tend to forget that he and she only refer to a biological gender with everything else being it. As a result, a company becomes a she because it is a feminine noun in Hebrew while a house is a he. Certain nouns in Hebrew are plural, such as sky and water, are occasionally referred to as they by Hebrew speakers. It turns out that gender differences are also confusing in languages.

[parts of speech]

Every language has its own syntax but the difference between languages from different families can be rather significant. In Hebrew, prepositions, (e.g., on and in) are letters attached to words, with each word retaining its own preposition.  To demonstrate, in English, you can say, “I got tired of the noise and cars of the city” with the preposition of implicitly linked to the word cars. In Hebrew, you would have to add the preposition of (meh מ) to both nouns. Curiously, many otherwise knowledgeable expats are unaware of this fact. On a more practical level, when Brits literally translate their English construction of “It’s hot today”, זה חם היום [ze cham hayom], it is incorrect as Hebrew eschews the it is construction with the correct form being “hot today” חם היום [cham hayom]. By contrast, Israelis tend to err when using the connecting term for example in writing. While in formal Hebrew, it is correct to add a colon after the term and then write the examples, in English the rules of composition require a full sentence after it (as compared to the expressions such as and including). Temporal clauses are also traps for Israel as they tend to apply the Hebrew logic of putting the verb in the future. The result is “When I will arrive, I will call you,”, which no native English speaker would ever say.  Likewise, after modals, Israelis sometimes use the infinitive instead of the base form, e.g. The car can to break down anytime’ because Hebrew modals are followed by the infinitive. Thus, native language syntax does invade learned languages.

Clearly, the vast majority of language learners never reach completely native level of a foreign language partly because of first language interference. Some transference will always occur. However, most of these mistakes actually do not affect comprehension. Furthermore, native speakers are generally willing to forgive foreigners for these errors and focus on the positive. As in dealing with any type of disturbance, it helps to have a sense of humor regardless of your role, speaker or listener.

* Add picture capitons to help the blind access the Internet. Pictures via Pixabay.

Say it again, Sam or syntactical repetition

 

[Humphrey Bogart*]

Redundancy can be both positive and negative. In legal terminology, terms and conditions are the same as are cease and desist and thus merely add superfluous complexity to the language. By contrast, on airplanes and space vehicles, redundancies save lives. In grammar, redundant structures are quite frequent but from far from universal. Comparing examples from English, Hebrew, French and Russian, I will present some linguistic double-takes in the use of prepositions, articles, subjects, possessives and negations.

All languages use prepositions in conjunctions with verbs but the difference appears where they are multiple objects of the preposition. Most languages repeat the preposition before each noun. For example, in French, you would say “Je suis allé au cinéma, au café et à la piscine” meaning I went to the movies, coffee shop and pool. Note that the preposition à meaning to in its appropriate form (à and au) appears before each noun. This is the practice in most languages but not in English. The word to is only used once before the first noun in the English translation.

To be fair, in the case of a particle, a word without any lexical meaning but serving a grammatical function in the sentence, repetition can matter. Take the following Hebrew sentence:

הם הכירו פה את כל סוגי מזג האוויר, את החברה ואת הים.

The word את is a particle indicating the presence of a specific direct object. Translating the phrase literally into English, it comes out “They knew all types of weather, the society and the sea.” In Hebrew, the particle is placed before each noun, clearly indicating that types of weather, society and sea are all direct objects of the verb “to know”. However, in English, because of the intervening presence of the words “types of”, it could be understood that they knew types of weathers, types of society and types of sea, not the writer’s intention. Thus, a lack of a repeated article or particle can create ambiguity. The sentence as translated came out: “they are familiar here with weather of all types, the society and the sea.”

This example leads to the matter of articles, the and a in English. Since in most languages nouns have a gender, i.e., masculine, feminine and sometimes neuter, it is necessary to insert the gender identifying article before each noun. In the following sentence Le pėre, la mėre and les enfants ont tous les droits., meaning the father, mother and children all have rights, each of the forms of the French article le is used in accordance with gender and number. However, as English nouns do not have gender unless it is natural, e.g. girl and boy, there is no need to insert the word the before the two last nouns as the first use implicitly applies to each of them. Reverting back to the translation in the previous paragraph, it is not a mistake to repeat the article if it adds a certain required emphasis or stylistic element. As English stresses conciseness, the repeated articles are usually omitted.

Certain languages lack a commonly-used form of the verb to be in the present tense, notably Hebrew and Russian. They simply write the subject and predicate without that verb. For example, in English, in identifying someone’s profession, a person would write Mr. Jones is a teacher. In Hebrew, due to the lack of a register-neutral form of the verb, it comes outs Mr. Jones, he teacher. In effect, the subject, Mr. Jones and he, is repeated to allow use of the accepted grammatical structure, pronoun – identifier, without a verb. Here the redundancy is required by syntactic rules that do not apply in most languages.

Possessives are often doubled, albeit for different reason. In French, the form of the possessive is determined by the gender of the noun it describes, not that of the person that owns it. For example, in the sentence “Son chien est laid”, which means his/her dog is ugly, the use of the masculine form son is indicated because the noun chien is masculine. In order to clarify the matter of ownership, it is necessary to write Son chien à lui or son chien à elle in order to indicate his or her, respectively. In Hebrew, for syntactical reason, a possessive declination is added to the noun in addition to the actual possessive element. To demonstrate, בעלה של נינה [baala shel nina] translates literally as her husband of Nina.  The ה at the end of the word בעל turns “husband” into “her husband”, which, according to English thinking, is obvious due to the word of. English does not require such doubling up.

Finally, there is strange matter of negation. Most languages a no is a no, i.e., one word of negation does the job. You don’t need to add any other element, an example in itself. Even Russian is satisfied with one word: он не нужен большее [on nye nujen bolshe]. It does not need more, literally. However, French takes an additional step, i.e., an added pas, because the negating ne is not sufficiently emphatic: ça ne suffit pas. Ne is not enough. If you only use ne, it suggests an explanation or fear: je crains que il ne soit trop tard. – I fear that it will be too late. Like in backgammon, it is double or nothing in French.

Good reasons exist for redundancy in language even if they do add words. By nature and training, I value conciseness and efficiency in language. On the other hand, these repetitions are part of the language and add a certain charm as well as precision. So, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, say it again, Sam, but only at the right time.

*Always add captions to pictures to allow the blind to enjoy your posts.

Foreign tolerance

                                                          
                                                            [Picture of Oliver Cromwell*]

For every native-speaker of English, there are around four non-native speakers. This means 80% of English users not only have imperfect knowledge of English grammar and spelling but how to express tone. In other words, of increasing importance due to social media, most are not familiar with the manner in which it is possible to express ideas without sounding rude or aggressive. In this regard, it is important to understand that each language has its own acceptable style of written expression, which may sound ridiculous or rude when translating literally.

Two extremes are French and Hebrew. French is a flowery language arising from a culture that highly values formal politeness.  Some beautiful phrases found common in French correspondence of all kinds include: nous avons l’honneuer de …  [we have the honor of], je suis dans l’obligation [I am in the obligation of], en vous addressant mes meilleurs voeux de succes [in sending my best wishes of success], and je me permits d’attirer votre attention [I allow myself to bring it to your attention], even when the the content does not reflect such thoughts. By contrast, Israeli society and the Hebrew language are quite direct, if not blunt, which is reflected in the written language. For example, Hebrew generally avoids use of such fillers as please in  sentences and how are you doing at the beginning of emails. Since, its syntax generally follows the subject-verb-object order and the language has often has few synonyms, the message is to the point. Its tendency to call a spade a spade is the polar opposite of the French indirect style.

English is a direct language in terms of sentence syntax but developed in a class society that valued politeness. In practical terms, the polish in English correspondence is added through doubt, understatement and vagueness, among others. To avoid putting people in uncomfortable corners, English has many phrases to allow for error, at least in form. These include to the best of my knowledge, as far as I can know, it appears that and I have received information that. These words avoid direct accusation. Another technique, typically British, is reducing the severity of the term, sometimes to the point of sarcasm. For instance, your services did not meet my satisfaction means that the contractor’s worker was awful while I find it regretful often expresses great anger. When it would be too confrontational to formally mention a painful matter, native English speakers prefer vague terms. Some examples include please advise, payment issues, contractual obligations and resolving the issue. Using these techniques, English correspondence loses its uncomfortable aggressiveness at least as far as native speakers are concerned.

However, most users of English are neither native speakers nor advanced students of English in terms of formal studies or living in an English-speaking country. At the same time, they increasingly are active in international writing, especially in social media and email. Their language is generally understandable in terms of content but sometimes creates misunderstanding in terms of tone. Specifically, the writer may have intended the greatest respect but the reader, especially a native English speaker, may forget that the writer does not share a common culture and interpret a comment as rude, even insulting, or bloated This communication gap can create avoidable communication barriers.

In terms of implications, it is clear that non-native English-speaking professionals that actively use email and social media should seek guidance on the matter to ensure that they transmit their true message. For example, my wife, an Israeli, occasionally consults me in regards to sensitive email to make sure that the underlying message is effectively expressed. On a greater scale, when reading and reacting to various comments in social media, especially Facebook, it is important to consider the background of the writers. If they are non-native English speakers writing in English, however correct that English may be, they may be entirely unaware of English writing conventions and, consequently, how insulting their comments sounded to a native English speaker. Accordingly, we native speakers must be patient with foreigners not only because they are the majority but also because the vast majority have limited knowledge of English. I hope for the same when I write in French or Hebrew. As Cromwell would say, tolerance is the basis for a civil society.

* For the sake of the blind, do not forget to caption your pictures. Picture taken from wikipedia site.

English interference

Hebrew is not a difficult language to learn.  Due to several thousand years of forced stagnation, it failed to develop new roots and became quite regular.  The result is that each “root” learned allows the learned to understand countless new words.  To demonstrate, the root katav כתב  is used in many words, write, letter, address and dictate, to name just a few. Furthermore, there are only three tenses, past, present and future, simplifying grammar use.  The number of exceptions is rather limited and carefully organized into categories. Thus, despite its initial impression, learning Hebrew is not an especially difficult task.

That said, native languages always interfere in one way or another  with foreign languages. I have lived in Israel some 28 years and am quite fluent in both speaking and reading.  Yet, I continue to repeat certain errors despite all of my wife’s corrections. It is as if my brain insists on certain ways of doing things.

In my case, this inability to adjust to Hebrew comes out in three areas: letter pronunciation, syntax and gender chaos. Regarding the first, the transition from one language always involves some problematic sounds and letters.  For example, the French truly struggle with the English th sound. In the case of Hebrew, I pronounce the voiced and unvoiced h sounds, as represented by the letter heh ה, het ח and hof  כ almost without any distinction even though they are three different sounds in fact. Likewise, I massacre the difference between the sounds of the letters alef א  and ayin ע although I am cognizant of it.

Every language has its own syntax, its own way of framing the sentence, which can lead to misunderstandings when applied to another language. A nice example is the American expressing her frigidity instead of lack of body heat in the classic direct translation of English to French: Je suis froide when it should be J’ai froid. Regarding to Hebrew, since English sentences require a subject and verb, it is common and acceptable to add “it is” before adjectives to arrange the grammar while in Hebrew there is no need in some cases.  So, I constantly say זה קר בחוץ, literally it is cold outside, instead of just קר בחוץ , cold outside. It just does not seem natural.

Finally, the whole genderification of pronouns is a constant trap.  All pronouns, 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd person, have a male and female form in both singular and plural.  By contrast, English has he and she, with all other pronouns being neutral, such as I and they.  Not only that, the Hebrew verb must agree with the gender and number of the noun, unlike the non-gender specific forms of English verbs. The result is the constant need to consider the gender and adjust the grammar.  When speaking quickly or under pressure, these details can get lost.  In my case, everybody else in my house, i.e., my wife and daughter, is female, leading me to always use the female forms.  Unfortunately, quite often that rule does not apply out of the house, leading to people  to think “what a stupid American.”

In summary, language interference is a part of the learning process.  To a large extent, it can be overcome most of the time.  Still, no matter how long I will live her and how well I know the language, English will interfere from time to time.  Ultimately, it is not that important.

Language Inequality or the Joy of Challenges - Part 2

As was explained in the previous post, each language poses a different level of challenge to those who wish to learn it, depending on various factors.

4. Syntax. Linguist theorist claim that human brains are wired into in the subject-verb-object structure, meaning that people instinctively expect and understand that order.   Whether this is true or not, languages not bound by this order, i.e. those that use the case system require more energy to learn and understand but are much freer in terms of sentence construction.  A comparison of English and Russian demonstrates this point.  While English may have many words to learn, once the learner recognizes that a given word is a noun, it requires no more effort to process and apply that word.  The writer/speaker can place that noun in that form in any place where that word as a noun can enter.  For example, the form of the word shelf is the same in the following sentences: The shelf is not straight; Line up the shelf; The bottle is on the shelf. The caveat is that the order of words is vital importance and follows strict rules.  You cannot randomly mix up them up without changing the meaning.  By contrast, Russian, like other case-languages, places various suffixes to nouns depending on its function in the sentence or what the word before it. The meaning of all this complexity is that learners of the Russian language do not have the tools to understand or write a proper Russian sentence until they learn all six cases (which is still easier to do than the 19 cases of Finnish).  So, students of Russian earn their rewards.  On the other hand, once this skill is attained, it is hard to make an error in sentence construction since almost anything is allowed.

5. Roots. The rule in regards to learning a language is that the fewer roots there are, the easier the language. In other words, you get more miles (kilometers) for every word you learn.  So, Hebrew, a non-developing language for so long, is extremely easy to learn in that perspective while English is simply hell.  The other issue with roots is familiarity. To a certain point, being familiar with the roots from another language eases the process radically. English speakers generally do not struggle with Spanish because many of the words sound familiar.  It can happen that too much familiarity brings confusion.  I studied Italian for several years.  I had to remember the spelling differences between it and French, a more familiar language for me.  For example, the word and is et in French but e in Italian.  The same issue might arise among speakers of Slavic languages, among others.  It always helps to have some knowledge in advance.

6. Intonation and tone. All languages have intonations, the manner in which various kinds of sentences are spoken, i.e. statement, question, exclamation, etc.  This voice control varies from language to language and country to country and presents the greatest challenge to mastering a language since it requires conscious retraining of your voice.  For example, English has limited up/down waves when making a statement: I bought a car.  There is almost no difference in tone between the first and last word.  In Russian, with the equivalent sentence, the first word would have a normal tone but the volume would decrease until the last word almost disappears.  French, by contrast, will resemble a sine wave pattern, up and down.  In Italian, well, it would like an opera, to my ear at least.  However, a far greater learning challenge is tone-based languages, such as Chinese.  The same sound can have numerous meanings, all depending on the tone of the pronunciation. Small children pick up those tones quickly but most adults struggle to master them.

So, it should be clear that no language is a piece of cake in all aspects nor is any language impossible to learn.  Natural talent can be factor but motivation, time and effort can overcome any difficulty a language can pose.  Every language opens the world and its people.  This investment is clearly worthwhile.