TELLTALE UN-ENGLISH MARKERS IN
THE USAGE OF FOREIGNERS WHOSE
ENGLISH IS OTHERWISE GOOD© 1997-1999, 2002 by Orchid Land Publications
[Updated 20020903]
This page will be augmented as I think up additional "markers" in otherwise good English used by foreigners. I'll omit the transcultural blunder committed by those who speak of "standard English," as though there were someone to standardize English--and as though the idea hadn't been denounced by all of the prominent English dictionary-makers in the past!! (Native-speakers normally speak of "good English.") I'll begin with the worst fingerprints, or rather tongueprints, of foreigners' English.
The problems discussed below stem from foreigners' belief in "standard English"--and their belief that they know what that is, despite the great disparity between their concepts and cultivated English; this belief is due to their failure to see that English is not like German, French, and other languages standardized by academies granted the power to do that. (CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS TOPIC.) Of course, most descriptions of English are so faulty (e.g. on the use of pronoun "cases," verb "tenses," etc.) that they lead foreigners astray. Phonemics, which reduces redundancies, leaves out much information necessary for a foreigner to pronounce the language correctly; e.g. the [w] in situ[w]ation, the omission of which leaves an outlandish result for all but Scottish speakers.PRONUNCIATION
GENERAL: The main problem with acquiring a native accent lies in speaking like a book and ignoring the assimilations not mentioned in most books that native-speakers make naturally. For example, we change "v" to [b] before "m" in conversational tempos in haven't, gov'ment (in the sense of the entity one pays taxes to), etc.; and we assimilate "d" to certain following consonants (see the book by Bailey & Maroldt mentioned in the note below), as in goob boy, goog girl, I'b better, if they'b been, etc. The double consonants simplify to one in conversational tempos, so good in the previous examples becomes goo', I'd becomes I, and they'd becomes they--with 'd effectively lost. And [v] gets lost in unstressed of and 've, especially before consonants; cf. the normal usage of lotsa for lots of and of shoulda and musta for should've and must've, respectively. When this coincides with vowelless 've, the word gets entirely lost, as in I' gotta.
--omitting the [w] in situ[w]ation, genu[w]ine, etc. This is a real litmus test of quasi-native English. One often hears sitchee[/]ation. You should say "sitcha" and immediately add "waishun." (In Scotland, the "w" is omitted for historical reasons: "w" became "v," as in Cockney English; siteevation then sounded too deviant and eventually fell into desuetude.)
--pronouncing [t] between most consonants (as in mustn't and mostly), as well as [d] between [n] or [l] and most consonants (as in windmill and goldmine; Germans use a Knacklaut for both [t] and [d] here). Unstressed and, England, Scotland, Ireland, island, husband, almond, and older ribband for ribbon lack final [d]--even before a vowel, as in "Englan' an' Scotlan' an' Irelan'." In many environments, and is simply syllabic 'n.
--It is pitiful to hear learners of English trying to pronounce "th" in faiths, tenths, sixths, and fifth century. Aside from the fact that we omit the second "f" in fifth and the only "f" in twelfth, "ths" becomes a fronted "s" (or, in bathes, a fronted "z"), which is long in slower tempos. Thus, faiths differs from face only in the place of the tongue tip when articulating "s"--and, in slower tempos, in that the sound in question is longer in faiths. In normal tempos, tenths and tense are parallel, as are sixths and six. And please, just double the fronted "s" in place of "th" in twentieth century! For how pitiful "th" sounds in synthetic and (esp. among English literature specialists) esthetic, consider that pronouncing gift as gifth, while etymologically in order, would in fact be absurd. (CLICK HERE FOR FURTHER ON THIS.) Just as we occlude "f" in sphere (different from spear only in where the lower lip is placed), so we occlude "th" to "t" in esthetic and synthetic and in other comparable environments. (See the author's English phonetic transcription; those who read German can also consult Bailey and Maroldt, Grundzüge der englischen Phonetologie.) Some speakers even retain "f" and change "th" to "t" (as did speakers of Anglo-Saxon) in fifth and twelfth; fift and twelft are heard. Because "f" is omitted in fifth, fifths differs from fists (which ends in [s:], with no [t] heard) only in that the sibilant is more fronted (the tongue tip is against the edges of the upper row of teeth) in fifths. Foreigners often fail to realize that the pronunciation of "th" as [T] or [D] when not preceded b;y a vowel or stopped consonant is just like their own "t" and "d"; or that the fronted [q 1] of "ths" is just like their own "s" and "z." The noun clothes sounds just like the verb (not the noun or adjective) close.
--failure to change //s// and //z// to laminopalatal [s]
"sh" and [z] "zh," respectively, before palatals--i.e. /y j/ and [s z 6 =], as in horse#shoe . . . ignoring the change of "s#y" to long "sh" in Miss universe, dis#unite, and mis#use and of "z#y" to long "zh" Japanese yen, those years, etc. Needless to say, issue and tissue have short "sh," since no internal word boundary, //#//, is present.--pronouncing stressed were as like wear/ware, unless you are in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales.
--failure, in normal tempos, to elide th(e), d(o), and infinitival t(o) before vowels, as in th'apple, d'you, and t'eat. Unstressed so and you often lose their vowels before a vowel. In fact, even stressed you fuses with a preceding word segment; e.g. if you is like i-few, and t'you is like the first part of tune. So help me! may become "swelp me," since a fast unstressed "o" or "u" is a "w"--just as a fast unstressed "i" becomes a "y" in premium, etc.
--releasing stops (especially those of the heavy order) before another stop or nasal; e.g. [p\] in aptitude, [c\] (palatalized //k//) in rectitude, [t\] atmosphere. The stops just mentioned are unreleased and glottalized. One common defect of phonemics is not to show this.
--among Germans, saying a glottal stop for //t// (or, in fact, //d//)--instead of just omitting it--between an obstruent and a syllabic nasal, as in moisten, soften, abandon, etc. In contrast with Akten ['ac/,], English Acton is ['æc\then 'ac\then] (where [c] is a palatalized //k//) with no syllabic nasal. American pronunciation allows [/] in mountain and fountain, but not (except in uneducated pronunciation) in didn't and hadn't.
NOTA BENE: Many other things of this sort are taken up in Grundzüge der englischen Phonetologie, a presentation of the subject--without technical notations other than phonetic transcriptions--that I wrote with Karl Maroldt, and which the latter subsequently "ueberarbeitet hat." This treatment includes the educated English of all countries (other than India, Hong Kong, and Brunei) where English is natively spoken. The volume was published as a paperback by the Technische Universität Berlin as vol. 16 of Working Papers in Linguistics by the Institut für Linguistik. A good deal of the material is based on C.-J. N. Bailey, English phonetic transcription, published in 1985 (in English) by the joint press of The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. Even native-speakers of English might like this--especially the denizens of the Southern States of North America. But the book in German is the result of stays in many countries in Africa, Asia, "down under," etc. [Interested readers may wish to click on the links at the end of this page.]
--Foreign learners of Enlish use formal pronunciations of the, to, and do before vowels in what should be normal speech--where th' is heard before a vowel as in th'apple; cf. d'you (like dew) and t'use.
PREPOSITION USAGE
--Use of into where native-speakers have in; we don't say "involve into," though "evolve into" is okay. (See further on this topic in Bailey, ESSAYS ON TIME-BASED LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS Oxford University Press, [1996].) With most predicates, we use into only for a change of state, not a change of place, as that that document makes clear. (There are expressions, not predications of movement, that use into for a change of place.) Some examples are sufficiently on the borderline that either in or into is all right; e.g. "put it in/to writing," where into carries more connotations of writing a book or legal document than in does.
--The use of "in this (that) moment" for "at this (that) moment." The former is highly "marked" and vanishing rare in good English except with posterior connotations, as in "in a moment," and for a state, as in "in a moment of fear."
--Until/till should never be used for by--i.e. not with a negative, in the sense of "not later than"--as in "They will arrive by ten." "They won't arrive till ten" is of course okay. See Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 187-191, where various examples clarify the matter.Preposing or Left-Shifting adpositions where native speakers would not--except for special effects--is discussed in the last of the links below, as is the way pronoun forms are used in native English (we don't say "That's I" or "That's they"). And we mostly say who where foreigners learn to say whom; though there are places where the latter is obligatory. [See the last of the links at the end.]
SYNTAX
--One often hears a usage that disappeared from normal English a century ago: "NAME was used to do that"--for normal "NAME useta do that." (With a difference force, we also say, "NAME was 'uset' to doing that.") We make a distinction between "this tool was used to (or in order to) do that" and "this tool useta be used to do that." Though "wanna" is used for want to, other distinctions affect the sense. Foreigners should learn to distinguish "hafta, hasta, hadda" from had to. (Note the change of "v" to [f] in hafta [just as in left] and that of "z" in hasta to [s] [just as in lost].) "What've they gotta do?" doesn't mean mean the same in conversational usage as "What've they got to do?"--as well as "She got to attend both meetings"--Cf. also be sposeta with be supposed to and be bounda with be bound to.
--The saying of "all what" for all that.
--One of the worst-sounding foreignisms by speakers of many foreign languages using English is the use of "until" for "by"--a very complex matter analysed technically by the author in Essays on time-based linguistic analysis (Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 187-191) and--with some surprising contrasts in good English usage--in his booklet, How grammars of English are missing the boat (Orchid Land Publications, 1997, pp. 4-5; this is also published online: See the Orchid Land Publications main page or go directly to opL7.html).
A GROSS GIVE-AWAY AMONG SPEAKERS OF LANGUAGES LACKING A DISTINCTION like that between English by and until: We don't say "She will begin it until ten o'clock." [See the last of the links at the end.]
--The INFINITIVE is frequently used where native-speakers would avoid it, or just prefer a gerund to an infinitival construct. Thus, we prefer the possibility of doing it to the possibility to do it, though the potential to do it is about as good as the potential of doing it; and ability to do it excludes ability of/for doing it. Generally, the infinitive is preferred for irrealis events or states, while the gerund is neutral. The difference may be subtle, as between "they aimed to do it" and "they aimed at doing it": While the latter is optimistic, the former allows of "their" not having done it, or it may convey low confidence in their ability or earnestness with respect to doing it. Examples of the sort, "They were used to doing it," have been discussed above.
--PIED-PIPING PRONOUNS, i.e. foregrounding a pronoun along witha WH-word, interrogative or relative, is a give-away of foreignness in the places (most of them) where native-speakers do not do so. This is discussed in various places by the writer; the reader will probably find the most convenient non-technical treatment in my forthcoming "You and your grammar" (see the home page of Orchid Land Publications). Non-native foregrounding of prepositions goes together with the use of whom, which is heard in normal educated English in very few places; e.g. usually not in echo/reclamatory questions like "She gave it to who?" or in clauses having more than one WH-word like "Who did she give what to?"IDIOMS
--Foreign users of English say "in this moment" where the native-speakers say "at this moment." We say "involve in," not "involve into."
FORMAT
--I have yet to find Continental Europeans--including all of the publishers that I'm acquainted with--that can divide words at the end of the line in the manner of English. Many Germans encounter trouble with restrictive clauses. (I'm not picking Germans out for special treatment; it's just that I know more about them.) It's awful to try to read a document written in English in Germany in which the paragraphs are separated neither by space nor indentation. In more general terms, native English users think it more important than many foreigner learners of the language do to attend to the general layout--to make it easier to read. (By the way, note in the foregoing sentence how a dash is made, with no spaces before or after!!!) Incidentally, many non-natives call a section sign a "paragraph sign," being unaware of what the latter term means for us.
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about English pronunciationCLICK HERE for "How to pronounce frequently
mispronounced words of English"CLICK HERE for "How grammars of English have missed the boat"
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