Common Pronunciation and Grammar Errors Faced by Chinese Speakers of English

Common Pronunciation andGrammar Errors Faced byChinese Speakers of English

Jane Coates

Pronunciation and Grammar Errors

2 very different language families Methods of learning: memorisation and rote learning are

very important for the basic written units of Chinese: the characters

Chinese learners of English spend more time on memorisation rather than speaking and listening skills.

Pronunciation and Grammar Errors

Sounds are the building blocks of spoken language.

Some English sounds do not have matching Chinese sounds and are hard to learn.

Others sound like Chinese sounds but are not identical in pronunciation and cause confusion.

Difficult sounds

Trouble for many non-native speakers of English

Resulting sounds are often z and s. ‘Thin’ may be pronounced ‘tin’, ‘fin’ or ‘sin’.

‘This’ may be pronounced ‘dis’ or ‘zis’ Describe and model where the tongue goes. Move to paying attention to the sounds in

some real conversations. e.g. Interview classmates with questions that require the th sounds. What are you thinking about? What are you thankful for?

‘th’ sounds

Difficult sounds-th

Practice with minimal pairs think - sink thank - sank mouth - mouse faith – face these - seas sees - seize that - sat

Practice with a tongue twister e.g. Those thirteen thin students sat in the classroom

thinking. Although the weather was changing and the temperature sinking, they forgot their thick jackets. What were those thirteen foolish students thinking?

Difficult sounds-th

Use Jazz Chants to teach the correct sound

Tooth, tooth, I have a toothache. I have a toothache, And a sore throat!

Thursdays, Thursdays. What do you do on Thursdays? On Thursdays I often go to a football game.  

Sounds

‘r’ ‘l ‘and ‘n’ sounds Difficult to distinguish between so ‘fried’

becomes ‘flied’ ‘l’ in a final position is particularly difficult -

may be replaced by ‘r’ or simply dropped. e.g. ‘bill’ may be pronounced ‘beer’ or’ bi’

‘n’ sound Absent from many Chinese dialects

therefore difficult to distinguish ‘night’ from ‘light’

Difficult sounds-L

A Tongue Twister A flea and a fly flew up in a flue.

Said the flea, "Let us fly!"Said the fly, "Let us flee!"So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Difficult sounds-L

Tongue Twisters

You've no need to light a night-lightOn a light night like tonight,For a night-light's light's a slight light,And tonight's a night that's light.When a night's light, like tonight's light,It is really not quite rightTo light night-lights with their slight lightsOn a light night like tonight.

N and R sounds

Which noise annoys an oyster most? A noisy noise annoys an oyster most.

Round the rugged rock The ragged rascal ran.

v and w Z

‘v’ sound Absent from most Chinese dialects -

sometimes treated like w or f: ’invite’ may be pronounced ‘inwite’; ‘live’ pronounced ‘lif’

‘z’ sound Absent from most Chinese dialects -

usual error is to substitute ‘s’: ‘rise’ may become ‘rice’

V and w sounds

Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot We'll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

Which witch wished which wicked wish?

Sounds

Final consonants These cause serious problems. As there are few final

consonants in the Chinese language, Chinese speakers of English tend to either add an extra vowel at the end or to drop the consonant.

Books becomes booksa

Initial consonant clusters-bl- cr- sm- sw These are lacking in Chinese. The common error is to insert a

slight vowel sound between the consonants pronouncing ‘spoon’ as ‘sipoon’.

vowels

Vowels-ai- ou- oa- oi- ue- There are more vowel contrasts in English There is no equivalent in Chinese for some

sounds Hard to distinguish are: ‘eat’ and ‘it’, ‘bean’

and ‘bin’ ‘fool’ and’ full’, ‘Luke’ and ‘look’, ‘snack’ and

‘snake’

Changing Sounds - Elision

Native speakers speak very quickly! Sounds may be dropped! This disappearance of sounds is known as elision.

There are 2 sounds that are frequently dropped:‘t’ and ‘d’

e.g. you will hear the ’t’ in fact but not in ‘facts’ and you will hear the ‘d’ in ‘land’ but not in ‘landlady’:

“My landlady bought a new handbag the other day”.

“I don’t know when they finished work yesterday”.

“Let’s face the facts. This Company is going bust quickly”.

Stress and intonation

Stress and intonation are areas of difficulty.

Most 2 syllable nouns have the stress on the first sound.

Most 2 syllable verbs have the stress on the end sound.

In some 3 syllable words and in most words of 4 syllables or more there are 2 stressed syllables-one carries the main stress and the other secondary stress:

ultimatum investigation determination

interfere congratulations departure

Stress and intonation

Look at pairs of words and decide where the main stress is in the first word and if it stays the same in the second word:

photograph - photography

consult - consultant

estimate - estimation

refer - referral

Stress and intonation

Syllable stress changes in a family’ of words:

photograph, photo, photographer, photography

record (noun) record (verb) recording

sentiment sentimental

Stress and intonation

Contrastive stress This is when we stress a word very strongly especially when

we correct someone, e.g.

Here’s the cheese sandwich you wanted.That’s wrong. I ordered a meat sandwich.

O.K. That’s two white coffees. No. I always drink black coffee.

Did you buy that cotton shirt you were looking at?No. I bought the silk shirt.

Key or new information is often stressed at sentence level

“I’ll be arriving at ten at Heathrow because of a delay, so I’ll get the

last train back to Leeds and be home late.”

Where did you go yesterday?I was in Leeds yesterday.

When were you in Leeds?I was in Leeds yesterday.

There was no-one in Leeds yesterday.I was in Leeds yesterday.

The stress changes because what is new is different in each sentence.

Stress and intonation

Customer: Have you got any frozen peas?Shopkeeper: No. But we do have tinned peas.Customer: No. I really need frozen peas.

Stress can also be used for contrasting, contradicting and disagreeing.

e.g. David Beckham is quite good really.David Beckham isn’t good, he’s magnificent.

Common Errors in Grammar and Word Use

Gender: Confusing ‘he’ and ‘she’.The spoken forms of ‘he’ ‘she’ and ‘it’ are all the same in Chinese. Chinese speakers find difficulty in applying the rule consistently.e.g. ‘She is a good Director. His films are very good.’

I’ve a brother and she’s working in a factor Tenses and Time

Chinese and English speakers express the concept of time very differently.e.g. ‘My brother left home since nine o’clock’.

I’ve seen her two days ago.

I found that the room is empty.

Common Errors in Grammar and Word Use

Modals Communication in English requires polite forms of

instructions, invitations, requests and suggestions, in which modals play a central role. If Chinese speakers do not use modals then they may appear to speak more formally-or even rudely.

‘Should’ is easy as it corresponds to a Chinese modal. But in some sentences it’s use is more difficult. e.g. ‘It’s strange that you should say this.’e.g. ‘Can you do me a favour?’/Could you please do me a favour? Would it be possible…..?

Common Errors in Grammar and Word Use

Articles There are no articles in Chinese and therefore Chinese

speakers find it hard to use them.

They may omit the article:‘Let’s make fire’, ‘I can play piano’. X

Or insert unnecessary ones:‘He finished the school last year’, ‘‘He was in a pain’. X

Or confuse the use of the definite and indefinite articles:‘She is a tallest girl in the class’ X‘He smashed the vase in the anger’. X

Common Errors in Grammar and Word Use

Countable and uncountable nouns The English concept of countability is hard to grasp. For example, furniture, equipment, luggage, news

etc. can all be counted to the Chinese way of understanding.

This leads to errors such as: ‘Let me tell you an interesting news.’ ‘She as brought many luggages with her.

Common Errors in Grammar and Word Use

Progressive aspect causes difficulty ‘ What do you read?’ for ‘What are you reading?’ I sit here for a long time for- I have been sitting here for a long time.

Adjectives and verbs are frequently identical in Chinese. Thus the verb ‘to be’ tends to be dropped when followed by predicative

adjectives. ‘I busy’, ‘She very happy’. I am busy. She is very happy.

Parts of speech Parts of speech in Chinese are not always formally distinguished. The same

word may often serve different structural functions. It is easy to confuse related words such as ‘difficult’ and ‘difficulty’ in terms of their parts of speech or to appreciate the fact that certain functions in a sentence can only be fulfilled by words from certain classes:

‘She likes walk’, ‘It is very difficulty to convince him’. I have not son.

Jane teaching her Jane teaching her classclass

Different styles Different styles and methods of and methods of teachingteaching

Group Group activitiesactivities

Class Class groupsgroups

The joy of The joy of teachingteaching