My last post reminded me of a very important topic to bring up.  It is the all-too typical Spanish pronunciation of the word focus. At the Lake Tahoe Institute of English we hear a serious mis-pronunciation of this word with nearly all of our Spanish-speaking clients, and this mis-pronunciation is very, very bad.

Focus is a very popular word in business jargon at the moment – it’s used in every other sentence, it seems.  The focus of the project is this, we need to focus our attention on that, our team focus is X, etc., etc., etc..

Properly pronounced the first O in the word focus is pronounced with a long O sound, like ohhh, or like the sound of the letter O.

This is Very, Very Bad

However, way too many Spanish speakers of English pronounce it with the short U sound, very clearly and distinctly saying fuck-us.

Don’t do this.  I’m telling you. This is very, very bad. Of all the pronunciation errors that are charming or interesting, this is not one.  O.  Practice the long O sound.  Like fold or open or mow, no, go.  No U sounds, please, or you’ll have all the native English speakers in hysterics!

Last night I was out with the girls to say goodbye to two who were heading off to China to teach English at a university.  This is their third year to do so, so there were stories being told about embarrassing past mistakes made while living or traveling in a different culture.  Anyone who has traveled much at all certainly has some stories to tell about this painful experience.

Also present were two Irish friends, plus several others, including me, who travel frequently and to far flung places.

Watch Your Mouth

Well, we got to talking about the meaning(s) of various hand gestures around the world.  Now I knew a few, both from personal directed usage, as well as from some unintentional mistakes.  But the variety of insults that can be conveyed quite unintentionally really surprised me.

The Irish girls demonstrated quite a few that were very, very bad, but that I could have easily have made without knowing it.  You know, I really try to “watch my mouth,” as my mother would say (really, quite ineffectively, I might add), but I’m thinking I had really better keep my hands under control as well.  Who knows what kind of trouble I could get into?

Watch Your Hands

I was thinking I should keep my hands in my lap to be safe, but then I remembered what happened to my daughter, Eve, when she was an exchange student in Chile.

Here in the United States it is good manners to keep your free hand in your lap while eating.  But Eve was chastised one evening after she first arrived:  “Eve, you need to keep both hands on the table at a meal.  Who knows what you are doing with that hand in your lap (wink, wink)?

We must all be careful with our mouths and our hands when we travel, but we don’t have a clue how to do that.

Maybe I’d better keep my mouth shut and sit on my hands, just to be safe.

Linguistically, why has English become the international language?  Why has French been eclipsed?  Why did Esperanto never really catch on?  Why not Chinese?

Of course there are many contributing reasons for this.  You could say it is because Britain and then America were the dominant superpowers for a long time, so it was natural.  You could say it is because for many years America was the leader in technology and business innovation, so it became the language of tech and business, but then why no German or Japanese?

I mean really, why English?

It’s a completely crazy language.

It is a completely crazy language with more irregular than regular grammar, more irregular than regular spelling (or so it seems to the learner), and so many ways to pronounce each letter of the alphabet that we can’t even write them all down. Plus, English has a much larger active vocabulary than probably any other language in modern usage.

How anyone can ever expect to master this seems ridiculous.  And why they would try seems even more ridiculous.  And yet, it is the most widely studied foreign language in the world, and millions and millions of people do in fact master it.

As a native English speaker who is a teacher of English at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English, I am constantly having to try to explain and find rules for what comes naturally to me.  We get all kinds of English learners here at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English, and we design very personalized programs for each one of them.  We create programs that address various needs, professions and learning styles.

Sometimes I have clients who love structure.  They want a syllabus and a plan for what they are going to accomplish each day.  Some of them really want to know and clearly understand the framework and rules for English grammar, pronunciation and spelling.

To be perfectly honest, when I have a client like this, I have to spend considerable time reviewing the so-called rules and the many, many exceptions to the rules.  And even then, I find it difficult to explain!

English grammar doesn’t make sense!

There is a pretty simple explanation for this:  English grammar doesn’t make sense.

English is an extremely versatile and flexible language.  It is an ancient language that has been contributed to and molded by many, many very diverse languages over the centuries.  It is not largely Latin-based, or Greek-based.  It is Anglo-Saxon based with huge influences from Celtic, from German, Swedish, French, Latin, etc.  It is a polyglot of languages.

But in the 17th century linguists greatly admired Latin, supposedly the purest of languages, and decided that the rules of Latin grammar should be imposed on English, a decidedly non-Latin based language.

According to my language hero, Bill Bryson, in The Mother Tongue, “this is like trying to play baseball in iceskates.  The two simply don’t match.”

Well, no wonder then…..

So, to build on my last post, which explained why English grammar is impossible, why do nearly every one of my clients at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English tell me that learning English is easy?

They say that English is, for them, easier than learning French or Portuguese or Russian.  On the face of it, that doesn’t make sense, either.

Irregular grammar, irregular spelling, irregular pronunciation would not logically indicate that the language is easy to learn.

My theories

I have a couple of theories that are, as far as I know, unfounded and unproven.  They just come from my experiences here at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English.

First, I think that English, particularly American English, is such a combination of other languages that nearly everyone in the western world at least can recognize words and phrases.  Just as English speakers can study Latin to increase their vocabulary, speakers of other languages can study English to find words or remnants of words from their native languages.  If they speak more than one language, for example German and French, then this only increases their platform.

Something for everyone in English

In English there is something familiar to everyone.Not only do western world non-English speakers regularly find their own language in English, but non-English speakers  everywhere in the world have taken on English expressions in their own languages.

According to Bill Bryson in Mother Tongue, in 1964 just under 10 percent of words used in Japanese newspapers were English, or at least interpretations of English, such as “nekutai” for “necktie” or “bata” for “butter”.  If that was the case in 1964, imagine what it is in this post-modern tech-driven world.

You already know more English than you think

My clients find they already have a large working English vocabulary just from living in the modern world.  Without even trying they know hundreds, maybe thousands of English words.  As they actively study and try to acquire vocabulary, they realize that there are many more words they know or can guess at, coming from a conglomeration of many, many languages.

Bill Bryson is the kind of man I could fall madly in love with.  I would marry the man if:   a) I knew him, b) I hadn’t already been married for 30 years, and c) if he was at all interested in leaving his wife and family for a 56 year old woman with bad feet but good hair.

Actually, the same is true with Mick Jagger.  In fact, I have a fidelity exception written into my marriage contract for Mick that my husband has even agreed to (he’s thinking, “fat chance”, and after 30 years he’s probably right).  Are you reading this, Mick?  Hmmm….. Thought not.

But that’s perhaps too much information, known in the USA as TMI – as in “sweetheart, you do have a lovely shit-eating grin on your face, but really, the exact details of last night’s date are TMI for your mom.”

Why I Love Bill Bryson

But, I’ve digressed. Why do I love Bill Bryson?  And who is he?

Well, Bill Bryson is a wonderful, funny writer who has written many books on all topics.  Loosely, he could be called primarily a travel writer, but his books are far more than that, and not always about that at all.

His book that I have recently thoroughly enjoyed is called The Mother Tongue – English and How It Got That Way.  In it Bryson explores the history and development of the English language (not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love stuff like this.  Yeah, I know….)  And, what he concludes is that the English language is crazy.

And, why I love him is that he concludes that English grammar is also crazy and makes no sense whatsoever.  As I said, I love this man.  (You can see that my pathetic life has become way, way too involved with grammar.)

Learning English Grammar Is NOT the Same as Learning English

I’ve always been good at English, at reading it, at writing it, at speaking it, but I have never, ever been good at grammar.  In middle school, when we first studied grammar, I failed every single grammar test I ever took.  I went on to study English literature at UC Berkeley, quite a reputable institution, and managed to graduate with extremely high grades, but only because there were no grammar tests.

I have long felt that learning grammar bears no relationship to using the English language well.  And now, I am vindicated.  Bill Bryson says, “In English we possess a language in which parts of speech are almost entirely notional” and “the parts of speech must be so broadly defined as to be almost meaningless.”

EXACTLY! I am a rational, logical person, as are my Lake Tahoe Institute of English clients.  I can’t always explain grammar questions to logical English learners because there is no logic to much of it.  To date, I have done my best, but have all too often resorted to saying “I’m sorry, but English is crazy.  Just memorize it.”  And now I know, English is crazy, and it is because I am so logical that I can’t explain it.  I’ll be writing more abut the reasons for this in future posts, but for now, let me just say:

I love you Bill Bryson!

When I tell people what I do for a living I get all kinds of remarks and questions from them.  Everyone always wants to know how and why we do this.  They want to know what textbooks we use, and how we conduct our “classes”.  They want to know all about the “structure” of the classes. 

No Ordinary Language School

It is very difficult for many people, teachers in particular, to understand that this is no ordinary language school, and that we don’t teach in an ordinary way.  Rather, we have found that by working individually with clients, and designing their “lessons” around exactly what we feel they need to know, or what they want to know, we have tremendous success. 

Really Speak English

We teach very little grammar and formal structure here at the LakeTahoe Institute of English – we teach what you need to know in order to be able to actually speak English, to have satisfying conversations with other English speakers, and to have confidence in your ability to speak English.  Click on the following link if you would like to see a short video of me talking about how we got the idea for starting this kind of language school:  Founding the Lake Tahoe Institute of English.

Before coming to the Lake Tahoe Institute of English many potential clients want to see photos of where they will be staying.  I know it is intimidating to think of coming to a place for several weeks, work one-to-one with an instructor, and stay in an unknown place.  We can describe it all we want on the website, but nothing says it like pictures.  So, Kim and I put together a little video of where you will be staying.  We hope you will consider enrolling in our program.  To see where you will be staying, click on the title,  A Tour of the Lake Tahoe Institute of English, Enjoy. (And I have to say, we are total amateurs at making videos, so please forgive much.  Kim, though, is far better at this than I am.)

A lot of people think that as adults they can’t learn a new language, or that they can’t learn it as well as a child can.  And a lot of adults would like to learn a language for reasons as varied as needing it for business or travel, for personal enrichment, and because research shows that learning another language is one of the best ways to keep your brain working well.  The good news is that adults can learn new languages, and they can do it as well as children, given the right learning conditions.  Watch the this video, Adults Learn Language Better Than Children, to learn more about this topic.

In the last couple of months I’ve had the good fortune to speak with a huge variety of non-native English speakers, both clients of mine at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English and casual acquaintances.  I’ve spoken with native speakers of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Vietnamese and Mandarin.  I have noticed two common threads in all of these conversations.

You Speak Better Than You Think

First, most of these people spoke English far better than they thought they did.  They nearly always apologized and seemed embarrassed by their perceived lack of ability.  Of course I know it is intimidating to speak confidently to someone you know teaches the language, but not all of them knew what my profession is.

You probably speak better than you think, too.  So relax a little bit.  Just talk and all will be well.

It is the most unusual English speaker who will be impatient with you.  Most are extremely patient and appreciative of your efforts.  After all, we know that as a rule, we don’t speak any other languages, and as a rule, we are embarrassed by that.  We just appreciate anyone who has succeeded at all in learning our language.

Finish Saying Each Word

Second, and as important, I’ve noticed that the one problem that these non-native English speakers from many different backgrounds have in common is that they don’t finish their English words.  They drop the final letter or two, which leaves the listener often unable to discern which word the speaker is using.  This is probably the single most important factor in making your speech understandable to others.

For example, someone might say “Why you ha so man bo to ree”, instead of “Why do you have so many books to read?” or “I lie to ee mee for dinner” instead of “I like to eat meat for dinner.”  As the listener, in the first sentence, we don’t know if you are saying “ha”, “have”, “has”, “hair”, “ham” or “man”, “many”, “men”, etc.. You get the idea.  It makes it so much more difficult for the listener.  Add in the fact that so many listeners are themselves non-native speakers of English who have an accent of their own, and then you have real trouble.

It seems to me that a very simple but elusive fix to this serious clarity problem is to remember how the word is spelled, and then make sure you say all of it (that is, unless the ending is silent, which it sometimes is in our crazy, irregular English language – you just have to memorize those).

I know, you think you are saying all of it, but I’m telling you, chances are, you are not.  Slow down and finish your words.  I promise, you won’t have to repeat yourself as often.

After driving to Phoenix to visit our daughter for a brief winter vacation, Kim and I then flew East, to the tiny Bahamian island of Abaco.  We’ve been there many times, as it is one of our favorite places in the world.  Where Phoenix is desert dry and brown, with the only thing we love about it being Eve, our daughter, the Bahamas is a group of islands that is totally delightful.  We began going there because of the water, but have gone back over and over again because of the pure pleasure of being amongst what has to be the kindest, happiest group of people we’ve ever met.

Lush and Lovely

The Bahamian Flag

Surf's Up at Treasure Cay Beach

Day After a Storm - Treasure Cay Beach and the Bahama Beach Club

This particular group of islands, the Abacos, was settled about 250 years ago by Loyalists from America.  They were on the British side of the Revolutionary War, and wanted to remain loyal to the crown. When it was no longer possible to remain in America and be a loyal British subject, this group relocated to the Abacos, bringing their African slaves, who were later emancipated, with them.  These descendants of these same people, white Abaconians and black Abaconians, have remained on these tiny islands ever since, forging a very distinctive society for themselves.

Abaconian Accents

One thing I find so interesting and charming about Abaconians is their accent.  They all speak English, however the English spoken by white Abaconians differs greatly from that spoken by black Abaconians.  As far as I can tell, the Island of Abaco is more integrated than most parts of the United States.  People live together, work together, and speak with each other every day.  And yet these two groups continue to speak English with completely different accents after 250 years of living in the same tiny place.

White Abaconians speak with a kind of flat, half Boston, half British accent.  It is very distinctive, yet easily understood by any English speaker.  No matter what the situation, or how rapid the speech, I can understand it as easily as I can understand any west coast American speech.  Although inflections differ, the music and rhythm of the speech is classic English.

Black Abaconians, however, sound completely different.  One of the most charming aspects of Bahamians is the lilting, musical sound of their speech.  There is laughter and kindness in the sound.  There is a song in every sentence.  It is a beautiful thing to hear.

The interesting thing, to me, is that it is a very easy speech to understand most of the time.  Clearly, though, it has a different beat from common American English or British English, and when Bahamians choose not to be understood, when they increase the pace of their conversations, when they clip their words a little more closely, when they don’t enunciate quite so clearly, it is impossible for me, a teacher of language, skilled in comprehension of heavily accented speech, to understand anything.

The Musicality of a Language

In previous posts I have discussed the musicality of a language, and how it impacts comprehension.  Here is an incredible example of it, within my own native language of English.  The very thing that makes Bahamian English so charming is what also can make it impossible for even an English speaker to understand.

Some of our clients at the Lake Tahoe Institute of English are too worried about improving their American accents so that no one will know they are not a native speaker of the language.  Not only is this nearly impossible for an adult, it is, in my opinion, not a good idea.  Accents in English are charming.  We Americans love a foreigner, especially one who speaks good English.  An accent is appealing, so long as it is understandable.

What speakers of English as a second language should strive for is pronouncing sounds in such a way that they can be understood by other speakers of English, whether it be their first or second language.  We just need you to be understandable to us, not to be American (or British, or whatever).  Master most of the sounds, and, most of all, master the rhythm of the language.  Then you will be understood.