{"id":1902,"date":"2021-07-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tutor.engoo.com\/blog\/?p=1902"},"modified":"2022-12-08T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T09:34:08","slug":"persistent-pronunciation-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tutor.engoo.com\/blog\/pronunciation\/persistent-pronunciation-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Loanwords and Romanization: Lesser-Known Culprits Behind Persistent Pronunciation Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I worked as an English teacher in France, the school principal was someone called \u201cMonsieur Lelong.\u201d Can you guess how \u201cLelong\u201d is pronounced?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know what your answer was, but I pronounced it \u201cLee-long.\u201d One day, I was talking with a parent when Monsieur Lelong came up in a conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMonsieur who?\u201d the parent asked, confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMonsieur Lee-long. Uh \u2026 the principal?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh! You mean \u2018Monsieur Leuh-long!\u201d A look of realization crossed the parent\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as I learned the hard way, the French E is never pronounced \u201cee.\u201d Soon after, I realized that many other English native-speakers in France mispronounced their French E\u2019s too. And this pattern was pretty constant across proficiency levels!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar issue affects our students too. You\u2019ve probably noticed that even advanced learners who pronounce most things accurately still make what seem like beginner-level mistakes. Let\u2019s delve into two reasons that cause this to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound and Spelling<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Like English, many languages use some version of the Latin alphabet as their writing system. Spanish, German, Turkish, and Vietnamese are a few examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, many other languages use a system of romanization<\/a> that assigns English letters to sounds in their native languages. These romanization systems are what our students use to spell their names in English, e.g. \u201cKenji\u201d and \u201cHyunwoo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, most English learners are familiar with the Latin alphabet. While this is an advantage in the beginning, it can result in some persistent pronunciation problems down the line \u2013 similar to the kind I made in French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because of something called \u201csound-spelling correspondence<\/a>\u201d or our understanding of how letters are pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Sound-spelling correspondences for the letter A and the letter combination CH<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

For example, when English speakers see the letter A, we tend to pronounce it like the A\u2019s in the words \u201cart,\u201d \u201clamb,\u201d or \u201capron.\u201d In our minds, the letter A corresponds to these three sounds and every other letter of the alphabet corresponds to its own set of sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to letter combinations like CH or KN. We have expectations of what these should sound like that are often different from other languages. This is why English speakers are often surprised to find that German words with the KN combination don\u2019t leave the K silent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because we internalize these expectations \u2013 or sound-spelling correspondences \u2013 so early in life, unlearning them for a foreign language is extremely difficult!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how does this apply to our students? Well, the romanization systems our students are used to usually have a closer one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. For example, the letter O in Japanese and Korean romanization corresponds only to the \u201coh\u201d sound in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This might not seem like a big deal, but in reality, the letter O in English is pronounced \u201coh\u201d only about 30% of the time<\/a>. The other 70%, it\u2019s pronounced in different ways, like \u201cuh\u201d (as in \u201coven\u201d), \u201cah\u201d (as in \u201copera\u201d), or \u201caw\u201d (as in \u201coff\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learners who aren\u2019t aware of this will try to pronounce all single O\u2019s, \u201coh.\u201d Funnily, when our company mascot became an owl, we noticed many students mistakenly pronounced the word, \u201cohl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loanwords<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLoanwords\u201d are, just like the name says, words borrowed from other languages, and they\u2019re another source of persistent pronunciation mistakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example most of you will be familiar with is the Japanese loanword for \u201csalad\u201d: \u201csalada<\/a>.\u201d Most Japanese people are convinced that \u201csalada\u201d is the original English word, and it\u2019s very difficult to convince them otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may have also noticed that Taiwanese students pronounce \u201cpudding,\u201d \u201cbooding<\/a>.\u201d Even though P and B are separate sounds in Mandarin, \u201cpudding\u201d was translated as \u201cbooding\u201d in Chinese and as a result, most Chinese speakers struggle to pronounce \u201cpudding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, these loanwords cause students who have otherwise good pronunciation to make mistakes. Here are some other errors you\u2019ll hear Japanese students make:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""It's<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udc4b That\u2019s it for now!<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Have you noticed any other letters or words that students always mispronounce no matter how many times you correct them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If not, keep an ear out for them. When you notice them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n