The linguist’s tale – A personal confession of native language interference

 

The sad truth is the 99% of humanity will never sound like a native speaker when they speak a foreign language. We may have a great ear, solid knowledge of grammar and well-developed vocabulary. Yet, some strange turn of the tongue gives us away. The culprit is interference from our native language, tendencies that are so ingrained that they affect every other language we speak. It is similar to those habits learnt from our parents, which we swore we wouldn’t continue when we became adults, but which we have to ultimately accept. I will demonstrate by recounting my misdoings when I speak Russian, French and Hebrew, habits that I wish I could eliminate but never will. All that is left is accepting imperfection.

Russian involves a completely different form of thinking and construction. I have managed to grasp most of its peculiarities. Case declensions are a matter of memorization and practice. Putting a noun in the singular after any number that ends in the number 1, including 1,000,001, has its peculiar logic but still carries a rational rationale. Practice helps hone the differences between the imperfective and perfective verb forms, which reflect, as a rule, incomplete and complete actions, respectively. However, placing adjectival phrases before the noun they describe is beyond the ability of my brain to apply. To demonstrate, the English sentence “The dog sitting on the table enjoys vegetables roasted in the fire.” comes out in Russian “The sitting on the table dog enjoys roasted in the fire vegetables. This structure is too alien for me to apply consistently. Thus, I will always sound like an alien, a foreigner, when speaking Russian.

French is much more similar to English but also has its intricacies. A little practice helps a student master the subjunctive. Furthermore, my plus que parfait is almost better than perfect. After an insightful webinar by Grace Shalhoub, I even feel confident when I need to adjust the past participle to agree with the gender and number of the preceding direct object, not as simple as it may sound. However, regarding gender, here I fail. I cannot and have never been able to remember the rules for knowing whether the noun is masculine or feminine. Aside from the “tion” class of nouns, which are all feminine, I can find no rhyme or reason. Thus, I have always double-checked every noun to be sure. I do not trust my intuition or my ear, only the dictionary. It is my cross to bear in French.

Hebrew is my daily language. I enjoy a rich vocabulary and an intuitive sense of how to choose the proper verb category from the root. Thus, I can read awful Hebrew legalese and can apply the rules to form the right verb from a root even if I don’t formally grasp the rule. My downfall is cultural. In Hebrew, the verb form changes depending on whether the grammatical subject is male or female (as well as singular and plural). This manipulation occurs in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd persons. In simple words, the verb takes on a different form when a woman talks is or is talked about. As I have spent most of my life surrounded by females, e.g., spouse, daughter and colleagues, I tend to use the feminine form at all times, especially when I am tired and my brain is dragging. It sounds quite strange to refer to a male using the feminine form. In my defense, many foreigners make the same error. I understand that the cause of this error is the lack of such distinction in English. People forgive me because I am a foreigner but I am almost as embarrassed as my wife is when I make this error. I will continue to strive to reduce the error but it is impossible to eliminate.

This is my slightly tragic but mostly humorous tale about sounding like a foreigner. I know that I am not alone. The vast majority of people drag some feature of their native language into their adopted language. It is not a sin. However, as Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof, it is no great honor either. As humans are no more perfect in other parts of their lives, we have to accept our linguistic warts just as we need to come to peace with our other imperfections. To paraphrase Shakespeare, it is better to have spoken and erred than never have spoken at all.

Spelling out the differences – Thoughts on why most of us do not pronounce the word exactly as it is written

 

[frustrated Spock*]

One of the claims to fame of Esperanto is that the learners can pronounce words as they see them. As the exception proves the rule, almost all alphabet-based languages exhibit a marked difference between the letters on the paper (or screen) and how the speaker says the word. This linguistic schizophrenia often serves a purpose but more often derives from the fact that written script is snapshot from a given, often distant, time and place and rarely updated to another time and place. Thus, students, both native and non-native speakers, must do as all previous generations do, i.e. learn by heart how to spell the words.

One notable complication of spelling is the multiple manners of expressing the same vowel sound but this redundancy serves a practical purpose. Latin languages in particular use verb endings that sound the same but are written differently. For example, French speakers pronounce é, er, ez, ai, ais, ait and aient exactly the same. Thus, touché, toucher, touchez, touchai, touchais, touchait and touchaient sound alike despite their spelling differences. While this may seem confusing to listeners, mix-ups are rare due to the human ability to apply context. On the other hand, these multiple spelling allow French and similar languages to get more kilometers to the liter for its sounds; due to limited number of phonemes available to Latin languages (as compared to Arabic most notably), having numerous ways of writing them significantly adds to the number of possible visually distinct words. Thus, while such a tendency does add difficulty to learning spelling, it also enriches the vocabulary.

Yet, in most cases, it is the actual process of determining the official spelling that creates the mismatch between the oral and written form. Clearly, pronunciation is a dynamic process specific to a given place and time. It is true that people tend to speak like their family and surrounding neighborhood when they were growing up. My Fair Lady very musically portrayed that phenomenon. Their children may pronounce the same word differently if they move elsewhere or another form becomes fashionable By contrast, at some time or another, somebody writes a dictionary, which establishes the “approved” spelling. At the moment of writing, the composer writes the words exactly as s/he says it or, at best, most people in that area. The spelling is phonetic for that time and place. Thus, in parts of England, then and now, the sentence “the girl went through tough times, I thought” would include 4 guttural g’s, specifically girl, through, tough and thought. Alas, the vast majority of English speakers today would pronounce the each of those consonants a bit differently but the damage is done. There is no choice but to memorize the spelling.

In some cases, such as Hebrew, the actual ability to distinguish a sound from a similar but not identical one has disappeared or is disappearing. Hebrew has two related vowels א, alef, which is pronounced [a] and ע, ayin, which is pronounced [a’] (as in when the doctor checks your tonsils. Furthermore, there are two forms of the sound t, ט, tet, [t] and ת taf [t’], which resembles a soft th historically. Unfortunately, many if not most Israelis do not clearly pronounce the ayin, blurring the distinction. As for the “t” situation, aside from religious Ashenazi Jews who received formal training in biblical Hebrew and Arabic speakers, modern Hebrew speakers make no distinction. See the modern Hebrew Shabbat as compared to the Yiddish shabbas or English sabbath. To take an extreme example, in Hebrew, את ,אט, עת and עט all are generally pronounced the same, [et], but mean moment, slow, a particle to signal a direct object and pen, respectively. In some cases, speakers actually say the letter to make sure of the meaning as in אושר ועושר, [osher v’ o’sher], happiness and wealth, adding “with an ayin” for the second one. Once again, the spelling reflects a reality that barely or no longer exists.

Some languages have managed to clean up their spelling act to a certain degree. The Russian government after the 1918 revolution reformed the language and eliminated numerous historical legacies. The post-revolution version of War and Peace is several pages shorter as compared to the 19^th century edition. The Turkish government in 1928 changed the alphabet, which provided a clean slate for the spelling. Even in English, the distant colonies, notably the United States and Australia often took the liberty of removing the silent and meaningless letters. Some examples include thru instead of through, honor instead of honor and shop instead of shoppe. As there is no official academy of the English languages, such efforts will always be local and limited, unfortunately for learners of English. Comprehensive language reforms are few and far between.

The legacies of the past define a language’s spelling system and lag far behind the changes in actual pronunciation. While sometimes a linguistic factor may justify the gap between the oral and written forms, in most cases, learners have no choice but to depend on their memory and, in these modern days, some kind of digital spellcheck. For me, complaining about illogical spelling reminds me of complaining about the weather. It is an entertaining  topic for a few minutes but, ultimately, people adjust to it. Spelling is what it is, often locally illogical.

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

Picture credit - Pixabay

Non-OEM language learning

 

[brain in four parts*]

Sammuel Beckett is the exception proving the rule. While he only learned French at the university, he wrote many of his works in French, including En Attendant Godot, Waiting for Godot for those that only read English. Try to find another person, not even an author, that is equally fluent in a language only learned as an adult. My personal experience with this challenge is having lived in Israel for some 35 years in a Hebrew speaking house and having a French mother that has lived in the United States for over 70 years. As fluent as a second language can be, it is not native.  An acquired language is different from a mother tongue in terms of crossover, vocabulary retention and confidence. A second language learned as an adult is not the same as your mother tongue.

Most second-language speakers suffer from  having syntax and grammar elements from their first language incorrectly entering their adopted language. My personal bugaboo is common weather expressions in English, specifically “it is cold outside” (or hot)  because I frequently forget that Hebrew does not require the it is, i.e., the Hebrew expression translates as "cold outside".  Another example is many Israelis never switch the future to the present in future clauses, such as “when I wake up, I will call you”, which comes out “when I will wake up” as in Hebrew. Russian speakers have no intuitive understanding of which article (the and a) to use in writing English and seemingly use the lottery system in English. Even after years, language interference never completely disappears.

Over time, there is one struggle that only worsens, specifically the ability to remember words at night or at times of stress. It is amazing how difficult it is to speak a foreign language at 11:00 at night or when a customs official is asking pointed questions. Suddenly, all of your vocabulary goes into hiding, leaving you talking like an idiot (and being treated as one also). Of course, it is a rare person that can do mental arithmetic in a foreign language. Apparently, foreign languages don’t like clutch time very much

Psychologically, the greatest difference between native and acquired languages is assurance. I will dispute (and confidently do so with pedantic editors when they mark up my translations) the correctness of my English, my native language. On the other hand, it seems that the default mode with acquired languages is that the native speaker is correct, which is not always true, even when the foreigner actually studied and understands the formal rules. This feeling of “what do I know” is generally stronger than the academic knowledge of language rules. When it some to acquired languages, when in doubt, a person doesn’t know. This lack of confidence does not disappear or even dissipate with age.

Knowledge and study are two different matters, including in regard to foreign languages. What people absorb in their early years is a certainty, even if incorrect, while what they formally studied later on is a matter of doubt, even if exact. Please do not take me wrong. To acquire a language is a wonderful experience. Even if the native languages contaminates it, words seems to run and hide and we lack trust in our judgment, conversing with a person in their native language makes you a superstar and a citizen of the world even if we don’t reach the level of Sammuel Beckett.

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet

Picture credits