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Spoken English

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The various accents with which the British,the Americans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, and the Canadians speak English are called the native accents of English.The accents of well-educated people are regarded as the standard accents and those of the uneducated as the nonstandard.The Educated South-eastern British, Educated Scottish,General American,Educated Canadian,Educated Australian,Educated New Zealander, and the South African are regarded as the standard native accents of English.

Phonetics Phonemes EnglishEnglish has become an international language of business,tourism,and science and technology.It's also used as a second language for administration,higher education,inter-state communication in many countries.English and its accents in these countries get influenced by the various aspects:phonemes,grammar,and vacabulary of the vernacular languages in these countries.These accents are called non-native accents of English.There are many non-native accents of English such as German,Japanese,Russian,Hebrew,Indian,Hungarian etc.

The official language of the Union of India is Hindi and its subsidiary official language is English.English is an important language for the proceedings of the parliament and the supreme court of India.Majority of the courses for the higher studies in India are offered in English.That's why English is taught as a second or a third language in all the vernacular medium schools in India.Since English is taught only through texts and by the teachers who are not quite familiar with the native accents of English,English spoken in India generally tends to have the following phonological peculiarities:

  • Time Stressed Rhythm English sentencesEnglish sopken in India generally has syllable-timed rhythm,i.e.,all the syllables in sentences are accentuated or stressed.This is because all the vernacular languages in India have syllable-timed rhythm.Whereas,the native English accents have stress-timed rhythm,i.e.,in sentences only certain syllables in the content words (nonuns,main verbs,adjectives,adverbs etc.) are accented and the function words(pronouns,prepositions,auxiliary verbs,articles,conjunctions) are said quickly using their weak forms and contracted forms,in other words they are not accented.The speaker tends to hop from one accented syllable to the other by quickly saying any number of unaccented syllables between them. The accented syllables occur at equal intervals of time.To rephrase,the syllable-timed rhythm is 'laa laa laa laa',the stress-timed rhythm is 'la la laa la la laa la la laa'.See the accented syellables in bold in the sentences below for example: 1) He promised he'd accept the invitation. 2)Put the pot on the table. 3)The modified electric cars, store electricity and then give power back to the grid. 4) It's almost astonishing!
  • word stress accent englishSpeakers of English in India generally stress all the syllables in polysyllabic English words.Whereas,in native English only one syllable-shown with ' mark before it in the dictionary- in a polysyllabic word is stressed.Every polysyllabic word in English has unique accentuation pattern,eg: democrat democracy democratic photograph photographer photographical telephone telephony telephonic Sometimes the word accentuation determines whether a word is a noun or an adjective or a verb,eg. accent(n) accent(v) present(n) present(v) When the native speakers listen to spoken English,they listen concentrating on the accentuated syllables in words.All the native English accents might differ in the use of vowels and sometimes consonants,but it's important to note that they use the same word accentuation patterns.This helps a native English speaker easily understand the other native accents.The word accentuation patterns are as important to know as the spellings of words.
  • The consonant phonemes /p/ /t/ /k/ are not aspirated in spoken English in India.In native accents of English they are aspirated or said with a puff of breath,as /ph/ /th/ /kh /.If these phonemes are aspirated,it's easier to recognize the words such as: pin-bin,pit-bit,pill-bill,peach-beach tin-din,tip-dip,tale-dale cane-gain,curl-girl,come-gum,crew-grew etc.
  • The consonant phoneme /r/ is a tap or trill in spoken English in India.It's pronounced wherever it occurs in the spellings of words,imagine someone pronouncing all the r's in the word performance.In native English /r/ is generally a post-alveolar frictionless continuant,and it's pronounced smoothly and only when it occurs before vowels,it's silent before consonants and word-finally.In English, words are not pronounced the way they are spelled,eg. the word tortoise is pronounced as totas, and the word performance is pronounced as pafomans.For more information on this topic please refer to this article and these links.
  • Communication Expression

Computers and PDAs generally don't support phonetic symbols,so I haven't used them in this post. Frankly speaking,languages are not the subjects to be taught only through texts.Learn as many languages as you want.Linguistically,the best way of learning the correct sound,rhythm and pronounciation of a language starts form listening to it first.We use languages mainly for communication so it's important to listen to the actual rhythm and pronunciation of the languages we learn. If you think you have perfectly learnt a second language,if you will,you can share your language learning techniques as comments on this post. :smile:


References:

  1. How to Learn a Language
  2. About ESL
  3. Multimedia English
  4. Audiobooks
  5. Library ebooks
  6. Youtube ESL
  7. Lyrics
  8. Dctionary
  9. Phonemes
  10. Word stress
  11. Rhythm

How it's been,Valentine?

Comments

Kiran 2. March 2009, 10:35

:D Thanx Arne.You know how to say hi in hindi and bengali? Write here and prove it.p:
Can you plz teach me how to say hi in all the language you know?:D

Arne K Lund 3. March 2009, 09:21

Well KYren. I do'nt know if u will agree with my translation, and I will not work too much on it, so in english letters: Hindi: namaste, bengali (which I have studied in Dhacca for one year, and later forgotten most: naamaasgar, tsangla or sharshucpa: kuzungsangpaala, but a proper hello/hi is: where do u goe? o dile, like salam aleikum could be said to be the proper greeting in muslim Bangla desh.
Hi in the scandinavian lanuages could all be: hei, but then again it could be translated into other greetings. And so on.
I once found a nice blog where general greetings like Hi, good mornig etc. in most languages of the world were written, but since my laptop constantly is invaded and changed, this adress is lost.:D

Arne K Lund 3. March 2009, 13:01

Thank u very very much night wolf shokria or salam :cool: :yes: :hat:

Kiran 3. March 2009, 13:04

night wolf 3. March 2009, 13:06

it's merci P: I.m Persian :lol:

Yow Kiran kaisa he ap? P: Ham home be jantahe P: see ya :D bye

Kiran 3. March 2009, 16:21

Thik hu,shukriya.
Merci means thank you or hello?
Home?p:

Kiran 3. March 2009, 16:26

Arne,you were in Dhacca for one year only to learn bangali?

night wolf 4. March 2009, 06:49

Merci means thank you :wink:

yeah i was going home from work :lol: now at work again :down: :lol:

French/European influence

Over the past couple of centuries, Persian has borrowed many loanwords from European languages (mainly French). A lot of these loanwords were originally French and use French pronunciation, also other common words mainly come from English, Italian and German as well. The table below shows some examples of common French/Persian words.

Persian French English
douche douche shower
mersi merci thank you
garçon garçon waiter
manteaux manteaux women's coat
chauffage chauffage radiator
sèche-cheveux sèche-cheveux hairdryer
cheminées cheminées fireplace
otobus autobus bus
chic chic chic
cravate cravate tie
sack sac bag
papillon papillon bow
Allman Allemagne Germany
Mâyo Mallot Swimming Suit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_vocabulary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Persian_origin

Arne K Lund 4. March 2009, 13:54

I am relly learning a lot on this blog. Thank u, sukran and merci to both night wolf and KYren. I was in Dhacca for one year studdying bengali with my family and friends. Both my friends and my wife were attending the HEED lanuage School to prepare for medical/social work in Bangla Desh later. It was not the first time I was i Bangla Desh. The plans were later changed.
PS Like we have a lot of words from Sanskrit, in most european languages, I am sure that we have some persian words in Norwegian. DS :smile: :jester:

night wolf 5. March 2009, 07:45

:up: cool link's :smile: but my link's were the best P: :lol:

I love the word mamnoon :up:

wohooo P:

Arne K Lund 5. March 2009, 08:29

Do'nt be too strict on us KYren. u r link led to 35 words in Farsi, that are used in english, and of which many are used in norwegian like kaki and kiosk etc. About english and norwegion/old nordic (included danish), I coud make a lecture easily. Tolkien knew old nordic and finnish, wich is completely different, very well. :up: :D :troll:

Kiran 5. March 2009, 11:56

Amir,I also like the word mamnoon.:D funny sounding word.
Btw,did you know that there are nearly 1 million words in English?
Do you know about airspeak and seaspeak?
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-AIRSPEAK.html

Kiran 5. March 2009, 12:11

p: Arne,who's Tolkien?

Arne K Lund 6. March 2009, 11:25

Tolkien was an english professor of literature and languages. He wrote a few books, of which the most famous was "The Lord of the Rings" First he was a bit disapointed that his language professor friend C.S. Lewis (see my Arnekrilu "about" page) became more rich and famous than him, because they both agreed that his books were better. But then it tok off, and to day many people think that Tolkien was the greatest fiction author in the english language, may be in the world, in the last half of the 20. th. century. He made up artificial languages. Some people sing in it to day. (I do not know much about these). :smile: :D

night wolf 6. March 2009, 13:43

Wow cool info guy's :up:

Kiran 7. March 2009, 04:08

Thank you Arne for the information.:cool: :up:

Dennis 8. March 2009, 02:37

KYren! :eyes: This is amazing! When English is your first language, you don't think of these things... it's like trying to explain to someone how to ride a bike. :D

Kiran 9. March 2009, 06:32

:D Hi Dennis! Thanks for your first comment on my blog.
:D Man,English is the toughest language for me.I need to listen to a native speaker of English to learn proper accent and rhythm of it.How many languages do you know?Can you please explain how to ride a bike in English,please? p:

Arne K Lund 9. March 2009, 07:52

Hi KYren. Ride a bike in English :up: :D :D

Dennis 9. March 2009, 09:11

:frown: I only know one language. English, according to the ESL people that I've talked with, is one of the hardest to learn. Sometimes I try to speak Spanish, I've learned a few job related phrases :up: I'm thinking of getting something like the Rosetta Stone when I get my pc set up.

 :eyes: You don't know how to ride a bike? :yikes: :lol:

Kiran 9. March 2009, 10:18

:D I know how to ride a bike and I want you to explain how to ride a bike in English.It's your english test,native speaker of English.I might learn someting new about English from you.
Rosetta Stone is too expensive.But I think the only proper way to learn a language is to listen to it with its proper accent,using multimedia CD's like Rosetta Stone,Pimsleur.A child should focus on listening to the native accent of the second language s/he is learning from the first to fifth grade.I think there's a need to invent an excellent and affordable multimedia course for learning English properly.
:D Arne.

Panzerplatte 30. March 2009, 15:04

I will try to be more understanding with others who have difficulty with
interpreting English. :up:

Kiran 31. March 2009, 23:43

Hi Leo,how are you? Long time no see.:smile:
Thank you,you have to be more understanding with me as well.My English is not that good,you know.:smile:

Panzerplatte 1. April 2009, 01:10

it is good, I understand okay :up:

Kiran 1. April 2009, 20:06

:up:

Dennis 9. April 2009, 12:42

Dammit, Kiran! I want to talk more about this! :irked: Grrr!

Panzerplatte 9. April 2009, 14:11

:cry: come back KYren

Dennis 9. April 2009, 15:25

:cry: :cry:

Kiran 11. April 2009, 01:08

:lol: don't worry friends.I will be back.I just have to sort out this network issue.
:lol: stop crying now.
Dennis,plz tell me what do you want to talk about,about this post?

Dennis 11. April 2009, 07:41

Yeah, I've got it bookmarked, I just can't find the time to get here. :frown: Glad it's only a temorary network issue! :smile:

Arne K Lund 11. April 2009, 10:48

Wellcome back when time is ready. :hat:

Kiran 6. May 2009, 23:01

Hi friends,plz see my new posts.

Dennis 7. May 2009, 18:22

:sst: Knew you couldn't stay away long! :D

Kiran 12. May 2009, 12:57

:up:

Zulia 1. November 2009, 16:17

namaste! cool blog! very informative! my source for learning hindi mostly from bollywood!



Kiran 2. November 2009, 05:30

Namaste and thank you, Zulia. :up: So which bollywood movies you liked the most? How do you understand the dialogues, from the subtitles I guess.

Anonymous 18. December 2009, 04:29

Anonymous writes:

nice i too accept the RP is essential to be taught in indian schools so that the differences in pronunciation may disappear and all can understand the language easily

Kiran 18. December 2009, 06:33

:up:
For that the method of teaching languages should be changed. The 'Listen First Method' is very good. Multimedia should be used more often than the texts.

Arne K Lund 18. December 2009, 17:25

Kiran. Mostly you are right. But there is a wider and more general principle.
We are different.
I learn best by multimedia and "listen first". My wife learns best by grammar and remembering word one by one. Some swedish scientists in linguistics stress that most people will not be able to learn a foreign language without an accent if they learn it after 3-6 years of age. But let me stress: most. I have met grown up people, most often musical minded, that can learn a foreign (or more) language without any trace of accent. They may even speak with a local accent, fx cockney english
:D :jester: :yes:

Kiran 20. December 2009, 04:01

Yes Arne, each one of us has his/her unique way of learning. Listening a language first helps you learn particularly its accent properly I think. The linguist in India say learning an approximation to RP is necessary to be understood nationally as well as internationally.
I am listening a lot of English songs and I am already a fan of English movies. :smile:

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