Some Typical Mistakes Made by EFL Romanian students

Some typical mistakes made by Romanians confronted with English Sounds and Intonation Ligia Alexandra Lucaci (cas. Spiridon

Some typical mistakes made by Romanians confronted with English Sounds and Intonation

!he English language is undoubtedly the most widespread language in the world" #uickly becoming a global language by most accounts. Some of the most mo st po popu pula larr mo mo$i $ies es an and d !% sh show ows s ar are e in En Engl glish ish no nowa wada days ys"" an and d th thei eirr number is steadily rising. It is a gi$en that e$ery artist who wants to make it on the global scene should" at least" possess a good understanding of the English language. &ot only is English one of the six official languages of the 'nited &ations" but it is also a re#uirement for almost all obs that re#uire tra$eling abroad on a regular basis or getting in contact with people from diff di ffer eren entt si side des s of th the e wo worl rld. d. )e )ealt alth h ca care re pr prof ofes essi sion onal als" s" sc scie ient ntist ists" s" an and d poli po liti ticia cians ns ar are e al also so re re#u #uir ired ed to sp spea eak k En Engl glish ish fl flue uent ntly ly"" es espe pecia ciall lly y wh when en working in multinational organi*ations. +udging by how #uickly the English language is spreading e$ery year" year" some say we should expect most people to speak it by ,--. Although Romanians do not seem to pose important problems while learning English" some of them speak English with an accent similar to speakers from othe otherr coun countr tries ies in East Easter ern n Eu Euro rope pe.. An elo# elo#ue uent nt ex exam ampl ple e is the the form former er /resident of Romanian" 0r. Ion Iliescu who learned English in 0oscow and it clearly shows. )owe$er" Romanian is a Romance language while the other countries in the area ha$e Sla$ic languages. In the following lines I will try to brin bring g into into disc discus ussi sion on some some of the the pote potent ntia iall fact factor ors s that that lead lead to this this phenomenon and I will also highlight some of the most common mistakes

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made by Romanian speakers of English in the field of pronunciation and intonation. 0any people think that pronunciation is what makes up an accent. It may be that pronunciation is $ery important for an understandable accent. 1ut it is intonation that gi$es the final touch that makes an accent nati$e. Intonation is the 2music2 of a language" and is perhaps the most important element of a good accent. 3ften we hear someone speaking with perfect grammar" and perfect formation of the sounds of English but with a little something that gi$es them away as not being a nati$e speaker. !herefore" it is necessary to reali*e that there is more than the correct pronunciation of the $owels and consonants of a language. 1ut what is pronunciation4 And what is intonation4 !he English 3xford Ad$anced Learner5s 6ictionary gi$es the following definition for the term pronunciation 7 the way in which a language or a particular

word or sound is pronounced and secondly it is the way in which a particular person pronounces the words of a given language, (http899www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com9definition9english9pr onunciation4#:pronunciation  in our case" the words of English. ;ell" there are two aspects of pronunciation. !he first < the way in which a language or a particular word or sound is pronounced needs a special attention" because in order to know how to pronounce the words or the sounds of a specific language a person should be first taught or intensi$ely exposed to the spoken language so (she may pick up pronunciation. In =. %. Rogo$a5s Methods of Teaching English, in the compartment Teaching Pronunciation we find that the first impact of any language comes from the spoken word. !he basis of all languages is sound" but words are merely 2


combinations of sounds. !hat is absolutely right and yet the ac#uisition of good pronunciation depends to a great extent on the learner5s ability of listening with care and discrimination. 3ne of the tasks of language teaching consists in finding ways to help the learners familiari*e with the sounds that are not present in their mother tongue or in pre$iously studied languages. In order to understand a word" our brain creates an acoustic image of that word" based on the sounds that form it. !herefore teaching pronunciation is of great importance in the de$eloping of pupils hearing and speaking habits and skills. !eaching pronunciation has a great importance in fostering reading and writing habits" since while reading we hear in our heads the acoustic representation of the words that are graphically represented. In reading the $isual images become acoustic images. !hese are combined with kinesthetic images resulting in inner speech. ;rong pronunciation often leads to misunderstanding. >or example" when a speaker or a reader replaces one phoneme with another" they unintentionally use a different word and in this way the sense of what they wanted to say is altered. Let us take for example the pronunciation of the th. !he th is one of the hardest consonant sounds to pronounce. It can be pronounced in different ways" for example as a /ð/ as in this" that " these" those" they or them? as the $oiceless /θ/ in three" thing" thought " or as a /t/ as in Thai or Thames. 0ost Romanians do not ha$e a problem in pronouncing this consonant sound. )owe$er I ha$e many times heard people pronouncing dis or zis instead of this. /ronunciation of the /θ/ is especially difficult for some 7 students often say tree instead of three, tink instead of think or tot instead of thought . In order to pre$ent this problem" the teacher could bring together pair of words like thick/sick, thank/sank, thing/sing, truth/truce, math/mass, 3


than/zen, clothing/closing and work with the students the meaning of the words.

!he

teacher

should

raise

awareness

on

the

fact

that

the

mispronunciation of words like the ones enumerated abo$e not only gi$e away the fact that the speaker is non7nati$e but also could lead to misunderstandings. Another feature of English that is not found in Romanian is that English has @, $ocalic sounds while Romanian has only . !he @, $ocalic sounds in English are di$ided in , categories8  long sounds and  short sounds. Romanian as a language does not make a distinction between long and short $owels so it is $ery important to make students aware of the importance of the length of the $owels in English. As a starting point for acti$ities teachers could use pair of words such as cat/kart, ship/sheep, cops/corpse, look/Luck, sit/seat, etc. Another mistake I heard $ery often is the mispronunciation of the word since which is often pronounced 9saɪns9. !his is probably because the combination of the sounds 9i9 and 9e9 in two syllables is commonly pronounced 9 aɪ 9 like in life, vine, fine, vibe Romanians may also tend to make words longer in English by di$iding them wrongly into more syllables than normally. >or example the word literature is pronounced 9lɪ.trə.tʃ ə r9 but because in Romanian we ha$e literatur ! " a word made up of  syllables" some students stumble upon it when they meet it and pronunce it /lɪ.tə.rɪ.t ʃ ər 9 . !he same happens with vegetable which is often mispronunced /ˈve.dʒ.tə.bəl/ or even /ˈve.dʒ.ˈteɪ.b əl/ and other symilar words.

!he same happens with fashion /ˈfæʃ. ən/ mispronunced /ˈfeɪʃ.ən/"

police /pəˈliːs/ mispronunced /ˈpoliːs/, or chocolate /ˈtʃɒk.lət/ mispronounced / ˈtʃɒk.lɪt/.

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&e$ertheless"

a

mispronunciation

of

a

sound

rarely

causes

bad

misunderstandings whereas intonation has the power to change the entire meaning of a sentence. >or this reason" in the following lines we will ha$e a look at what intonation is and what intonation mistakes are common among Romanian students. !he English 3xford Ad$anced Learner5s 6ictionary gi$es the following definition for the term intonation 7 the rise and fall of the voice in speaking, especially

as this affects the meaning of what is being said (http899www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com9definition9english9int onation4#:intonation . /ronunciation is often considered to be difficult to teach and" as a conse#uence" many teachers a$oid teaching it. It is neglected because there is not a lot of teaching material that deals with it and" at the first sight so many other issues" such as grammar and $ocabulary" seem more important to tackle. Intonation is interesting though because we do con$ey a lot of meaning through how much stress we place in a sentence and which word the stress is on. !eaching intonation within the communicati$e framework means guiding learners to experience speech as transfer of a message from one person to another. 6oing this helps learners to think about their communication" rather than as a classroom exercise" and to focus on their listener5s perception rather than on their own production. ;hen it comes to intonation" some students seem to ac#uire English intonation naturally by exposing themsel$es" consciously or unconsciously" to the language. 3n the contrary" others seem to ha$e either a flat intonation when communicating in English or to apply Romanian patterns of intonation 


to the English language. >or this particular reason" we Romanians" tend to sound rather aggressi$e" especially when it comes to asking #uestions. As an example" many students ask #h$%uestions with a falling intonation" following the Romanian pattern of intonation8 e.g &ow are you' $.s. (e mai faci' 1ecause there is not enough (if at all emphasis on the intonation when English is taught" students are not aware that it is the $erb which should be stressed and not the wh$word. e.g &ow are you' $.s. (e mai faci' /roblems regarding intonation would be fewer and less se$ere if students were made aware of English pattern of intonation from the beginning of the learning process. As it is well known" babies learn patterns of intonation long before they learn to speak" and I do not see a good reason why we" as teachers" would make things different by switching the stages or worse" by ignoring them. In conclusion" I would say that we" the teachers" ha$e an important role to play in the teaching9learning process" as we can make the difference in our students5 de$elopment not only by influencing their learning" but also by making the process enoyable and easier by pro$iding them with the right materials and gi$ing them the opportunities to get engaged in pleasant !


acti$ities. 'ntil they succeed in being autonomous it is our responsibility to guide them so that they can become proficient.

Bibliography

Brystal" 6. < Prosodic systems and Intonation in English" Bambridge 'ni$ersity /ress" @CDC =oglniceanu" B. < Cracking English Phonetics and Phonology " ,--C )alliday" 0.A.F. < Intonation and Grammar in British English" !he )ague" 0outon @CD )irst" 6." 6iBristo" A. < Intonation Systems: A Survey of Tenty !anguages" @CCC

Rogo$a" =. %. < #ethods of Teaching English" )*+

Ligia le!andra Lucaci "cas# Spiridon$ % & 'nd year

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Some Typical Mistakes Made by EFL Romanian students

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