(Mis-)Pronunciation
It's one thing to make fun of people who talk like deez. But to teach them can sometimes be a herculean challenge. For example...
Teaching a student who works in electronics the other day, we came across the word "beg" in a text. After defining "beg," I was asked how "beg" differs from "bag" in pronunciation. The answer is clear to me, as I'm sure it is to any native English speaker. But my student could not hear the difference. I repeated the words, slowly, over-emphasizing the different vowel sounds. He tried to mimic what I said back to me, but the two words he said sounded exactly the same as each other. I started laughing because of how much he was contorting his face to make each sound.
To complicate matters, "bag", when pronounced by the Brits, sounds more like "bog". Which is cool, except "bog" and "bug" sounded the same to this student as well. Again, repeating the words slowly, over-emphasizing the vowel sounds, produced absolutely no understanding. He eventually said, "Fine, I'm just going to use 'bag' and 'bug'." (since both "bog" and "beg" were new to him)
Similarly, the next day, the problems discerning "robber" from "rubber" were made apparent to me. Also, as a side note, just as "not real grass" turned out to be clay, "big wheel of air" turned out to be a raft.
In yet another class, we were talking about things that turn us off from people we date. And the word "hygiene" came up. "What's hygiene?" everyone asked. When I wrote it on the board, they said... "Ohhh! You mean HEE-GI-EH-NEH." (where the "g" is a hard "g" - like "girl"). Silly Czechs and their phonetic language, pronouncing every letter as it's written.
Yet the funniest pronunciation error I have come across occurred this morning. A student was talking about his studies in college, and he said, "When I was studying missionary..." and I paused as I took a double take, and then cut him off and said, "Wait, studying what exactly?" He replied, "Missionary." He continued with his story, not understanding why I felt like Leon Phelps talking to a nun, and then I realized he was saying "Machinery."
Teaching a student who works in electronics the other day, we came across the word "beg" in a text. After defining "beg," I was asked how "beg" differs from "bag" in pronunciation. The answer is clear to me, as I'm sure it is to any native English speaker. But my student could not hear the difference. I repeated the words, slowly, over-emphasizing the different vowel sounds. He tried to mimic what I said back to me, but the two words he said sounded exactly the same as each other. I started laughing because of how much he was contorting his face to make each sound.
To complicate matters, "bag", when pronounced by the Brits, sounds more like "bog". Which is cool, except "bog" and "bug" sounded the same to this student as well. Again, repeating the words slowly, over-emphasizing the vowel sounds, produced absolutely no understanding. He eventually said, "Fine, I'm just going to use 'bag' and 'bug'." (since both "bog" and "beg" were new to him)
Similarly, the next day, the problems discerning "robber" from "rubber" were made apparent to me. Also, as a side note, just as "not real grass" turned out to be clay, "big wheel of air" turned out to be a raft.
In yet another class, we were talking about things that turn us off from people we date. And the word "hygiene" came up. "What's hygiene?" everyone asked. When I wrote it on the board, they said... "Ohhh! You mean HEE-GI-EH-NEH." (where the "g" is a hard "g" - like "girl"). Silly Czechs and their phonetic language, pronouncing every letter as it's written.
Yet the funniest pronunciation error I have come across occurred this morning. A student was talking about his studies in college, and he said, "When I was studying missionary..." and I paused as I took a double take, and then cut him off and said, "Wait, studying what exactly?" He replied, "Missionary." He continued with his story, not understanding why I felt like Leon Phelps talking to a nun, and then I realized he was saying "Machinery."
posted by David at 9:14 AM
1 Comments:
Haha, pronunciation-mistakes are fun. I have studied in Prague for 4 months now (will stay here untill june) - so I have also experienced some bad english. But I guess our czech is as bad as their english.
Have fun in a great city!
Sigbjørn
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