[Grammar] Native Speakers: What is most noticable?

[konungursvia]

Originally Posted by anupumh

If one needs to conduct a fast track training for non native speakers who intend to converse with Americans. Which above mentioned parameters/components will be important and should be included to improve intelligibility?

For Indian language speakers wishing to learn acceptable American pronunciation, the voice must be trained not to sing the phonemes in the nose and mouth the way Indian languages do; generally Indians have good grammar and insufficient attention to pronunciation. It does at times inhibit communication. I called a Texan computer manufacturer one time and got India; I love languages, and am interested in Indian ones; nevertheless I became frustrated by the person's difficulties.

[anupumh]

Originally Posted by konungursvia

It depends entirely on the LD (langue de départ or departure language). East Asian language speakers make similar morphological errors -- lack of tense, number-- and similar phonological ones -- lack of final consonants, or unvoicing them when they are there; Indian English speakers understand our tenses and moods, but prepositions, articles and non-English phonology make it hard for them. Europeans simply replace phonemes with familiar ones, and allow the grammar of their articles and verbal moods to invade their English.

Generally, the biggest problems I see are with final consonants, particularly final S (plurals and 3rd person verbs) as well as incorrect use of the past tense, lack of past tense, and incorrect articles. You could write books on this.

Do you really think lack of an article would impact intelligebility and your understanding of the uttered sentence?
In fast speech articles have weak froms, thus omission of them should not create a lot of problem in understanding, am I correct?

[anupumh]

Originally Posted by konungursvia

For Indian language speakers wishing to learn acceptable American pronunciation, the voice must be trained not to sing the phonemes in the nose and mouth the way Indian languages do; generally Indians have good grammar and insufficient attention to pronunciation. It does at times inhibit communication. I called a Texan computer manufacturer one time and got India; I love languages, and am interested in Indian ones; nevertheless I became frustrated by the person's difficulties.

Thus you would advise that with Indians more emphasis should be laid on pronunciation than grammar??

[PROESL]

Originally Posted by anupumh

If one needs to conduct a fast track training for non native speakers who intend to converse with Americans. Which above mentioned parameters/components will be important and should be included to improve intelligibility?

Practice the English language's time-stress quality in combination with intonation patterns that sound normal to native speakers. There really isn't a fast track. But those are places to start first for improved pronunciation leading to increased intelligibility. Those items represent "the bigger picture". The smaller items can combine to create the entire picture of what one needs to work on, but it's best start with the broader specturm first, and then take care of the smaller items as they arise during lessons.

Intonation is the place to start. If the idea of intonation patterns is entirely new to them, then start with adjective-noun combinations. The adjective is stronger, or has more volume, and the noun is weaker, or has less volume.

Then there's the contrast between function words and content words.

[PROESL]

Originally Posted by anupumh

Thus you would advise that with Indians more emphasis should be laid on pronunciation than grammar??

This is not just with Indians. Better pronunciation will help anyone successfully get through a customer service call, a business call, or a conversation of any type than better grammar, in a manner of general speaking that is. Too many serious grammatical errors can make communication difficult as well. It all adds up to create the entire picture.

With some students, grammar takes back seat, and we work on natural sounding language that native speakers expect to hear in combination with pronunciation.

[Ann1977]

Problems with Syntax or Sentence Structure

> I think this is one of the two problem most likely to lead to incomprehension.

> An accent that makes the speaker's words unintelligibleis the other.
--------------------------------
Missing an article i.e. a, an ,the (the speaker misses placing an article before the noun)
Incorrect usage of preposition (using incorrect preposition or adding a preposition where it is not necessary, ex "You should contact to the officer")

I don't think these matter at all. In fact, one of the things that makes a Russian accent, for example, so charming is its omission of articles.
---------------------------------------

Subject and Verb Agreement Errors (Ram eat food, Ram and John eats food.)
Problems with Tense (shifting from one tense to another within a statement)
Differences in Usage (The statement might be grammatically correct but is not used by native speakers, ex. I will go to work next to next day instead of I will go to work the day after next)
Fillers and Foghorns (Usage of unnecessary words and pauses)

I think these matter not so much because they affect comprehensibility, but because they exhaust the listener. It can become difficult and wearisome to have to do so much work -- to have to listen so actively -- to swap even trivial remarks.
--------------------------------------------

If possible please provide reasons as to why you think so.

Some problems cause a communication blockade that no amount of mental adjusting can undo. If the sentence makes no sense, if the words are not recognizable, then there's nothing the listener can do.

Other times, the meaning is obvious even if there is a mistake, or at least the meaning can be figured out with a little (or a lot!) of effort.

Sometimes the meaning is not affected at all, listening is easy, and the speaker's conversation is enjoyable for its novelty and charm.

[anupumh]

Originally Posted by PROESL

Practice the English language's time-stress quality in combination with intonation patterns that sound normal to native speakers. There really isn't a fast track. But those are places to start first for improved pronunciation leading to increased intelligibility. Those items represent "the bigger picture". The smaller items can combine to create the entire picture of what one needs to work on, but it's best start with the broader specturm first, and then take care of the smaller items as they arise during lessons.

Intonation is the place to start. If the idea of intonation patterns is entirely new to them, then start with adjective-noun combinations. The adjective is stronger, or has more volume, and the noun is weaker, or has less volume.

Then there's the contrast between function words and content words.

Can you please provide some example of Adjective and Noun combinations which have mentioned here in your reply. I am completely unaware of them, I know about Noun and Verb combinations (OBject/obJECT, CONvict/conVICT).

As far as intonation in sentence is concerned, Hindi Language posseses it (yes the manner in which the rise or fall or stress is achieved might be different)

[anupumh]

Originally Posted by Ann1977

Problems with Syntax or Sentence Structure

> I think this is one of the two problem most likely to lead to incomprehension.

> An accent that makes the speaker's words unintelligibleis the other.
--------------------------------
Missing an article i.e. a, an ,the (the speaker misses placing an article before the noun)
Incorrect usage of preposition (using incorrect preposition or adding a preposition where it is not necessary, ex "You should contact to the officer")

I don't think these matter at all. In fact, one of the things that makes a Russian accent, for example, so charming is its omission of articles.
---------------------------------------

Subject and Verb Agreement Errors (Ram eat food, Ram and John eats food.)
Problems with Tense (shifting from one tense to another within a statement)
Differences in Usage (The statement might be grammatically correct but is not used by native speakers, ex. I will go to work next to next day instead of I will go to work the day after next)
Fillers and Foghorns (Usage of unnecessary words and pauses)

I think these matter not so much because they affect comprehensibility, but because they exhaust the listener. It can become difficult and wearisome to have to do so much work -- to have to listen so actively -- to swap even trivial remarks.
--------------------------------------------

If possible please provide reasons as to why you think so.

Some problems cause a communication blockade that no amount of mental adjusting can undo. If the sentence makes no sense, if the words are not recognizable, then there's nothing the listener can do.

Other times, the meaning is obvious even if there is a mistake, or at least the meaning can be figured out with a little (or a lot!) of effort.

Sometimes the meaning is not affected at all, listening is easy, and the speaker's conversation is enjoyable for its novelty and charm.

This explanation primarily dealt with English Grammar, now If I drift to English Pronunciation and ask you to comment as a native speaker what do you think impacts the most..

Consonants: Inappropriate Voicing, Harsh Plosives (PKT), Sh/S problems, S/Z problems, inability to produce a ZH sound.

Vowels: replacing short with long vowel sounds, inability to produce a proper schawa sound, other problems with vowel sounds.

Problems with Syllable Stress: English being a stressed timed language and other languages could be syllable timed where the concept of syllable stress is absent and all syllables recieve equal stress.

Sentence Stress: Unaware of sentence stress and stressing on incorrect words (function words instead of content words)

Intonation: Usage of improper tone, pitch and volume which does not match with the native speaker and conveys incorrect emotion.

So out these above mentioned factors which would be important and why?

[PROESL]

Originally Posted by anupumh

Can you please provide some example of Adjective and Noun combinations which have mentioned here in your reply. I am completely unaware of them, I know about Noun and Verb combinations (OBject/obJECT, CONvict/conVICT).

As far as intonation in sentence is concerned, Hindi Language posseses it (yes the manner in which the rise or fall or stress is achieved might be different)

I mean any adjective-noun combination:

blue sky; cloudy day; warm jacket - anything that comes to mind.

I've read that in Indian languages the words that typically receive greater stress are the opposite of the words that typically receive greater stress in English.

I recall a woman in one of my classes, who was from India, said this word: conjunction. Not only was the syllable stress pattern wrong, but the vowel sounds were rather clipped - not very strong. I didn't understand at first. Then I understood, and I asked, do you mean "conJunction?" And she said yes. So that was one miscellaneous pronunciation item in a class. That's why I suggest looking at the "bigger picture" first and taking care of the smaller items as they arise. Going on endlessly with minimal pairs doesn't lead to success in improving pronunciation. Minimal pairs are some of the trees. It's best to start with the forest first, and then work your way down to the specifics as they become noticeable, especially if we're talking about people who can already function well enough in the language and have an understanding of its sounds. Why presuppose problems? That's the problem with syllabuses and plans: they presuppose the problems and the needs of a class and satisfy administrators who like to see everything lined up nice and neat and evenly in a row. It may look like that on paper, but it does not always turn out that way.



Now, that's the intonation, or syllable stress pattern, of just one word. A more extended discourse with more similar mistakes over entire phrases and sentences - sentence stress - as well as mistakes with individual words and sounds (phonemes) will present a challenge to native speakers that call customer service from an English-speaking country and are connected to a place that is not in their country. Of course, this can happen from time to time within the borders of one's country among native speakers, but that's another story.

[Tdol]

Originally Posted by Ann1977

Missing an article i.e. a, an ,the (the speaker misses placing an article before the noun)
Incorrect usage of preposition (using incorrect preposition or adding a preposition where it is not necessary, ex "You should contact to the officer")

I don't think these matter at all. In fact, one of the things that makes a Russian accent, for example, so charming is its omission of articles.

I would say that this could depend on the level of the speaker- at lower levels, omitting an article is unlikely to cause a misunderstanding, but at higher levels, errors that could make a difference could be taken at face value because their fluency is good.