Learning a Language, Inventing a Future

Commentating at NPR, Andrew Lam, a Vietnamese who came to America at the age of 11, offered an interesting perspective about his experience of learning English at the same time that he entered into puberty.

Here is the link for the audio:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5374822

So, if one has to speak broken English, the puberty is not the best time to do it.

Accent and Mistake Don't Matter

The secret of mastering another language is really simple. It all boils down to two fundamental principles. First, feel comfortable with your accent--since you won't get rid of it anyway; second, not afraid of making mistakes. That includes the mistakes being made to you. The following BBC interview exemplifies the principles brilliantly:



Here is a bit of background information. A taxi driver, who speaks French-accented English, was waiting for his fare outside the BBC's studio in London. Out of blue, he was ushered in and put onto the stage. A few minutes later, the news anchor started the interview with him. That's what you've just watched.

The anchor didn't find out she was talking with a wrong guy during the live broadcast. The right one was supposed to be an IT expert of some sort, who's white, beard, and speaks a perfect Queen's English. He was sitting somewhere else and watching his name appeared on the TV screen.

All in all, the taxi driver handled it very well, despite his expertise lays behind steering wheel, not in front of computer. He proves that accent and mistake don't matter. Particularly if it's other's mistake.

Accent Parade

Again, quoting the same article from L.A. Times about accent reduction in my last blog, but this time with the demonstration of each accent.

"I If someone speaks with an accent associated with an Asian language, people may assume they work as engineers or computer scientists."


"If someone speaks with certain Spanish accents, people may think they are recent immigrants working in landscaping or the hospitality industry."


"a French accent evokes images of romance and elegance."


"A British accent -- the "Queen's English" version -- suggests superiority and sophistication."


"An Australian accent brings to mind adventure and fun."


My lack of cultural sophistication failed me in picking up the social cue of each accent. To me, frankly, each accent sounds funny in its own way.

Accent Speaks for Itself

If you only started to learn a second language in the late teen, you would almost be certain to speak the language with a traceable accent. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you can communicate clearly.

Well, not quite. At least, it's a bit more complicated for the non-native English speakers living in America. Each ethnics group has a few distinctive physical features, such as hair and skin color. Interestingly enough, accent is just like a physical feature. Once you open the mouth, an average American can pretty much tell where you were from without even meeting you.

That's when racial or national stereotypes kick in. How does each unique accent fare? The following paragraphs from an article in L.A. Times yesterday (titled "Accentuating the 'American' in their speech") explains it well:

Accents can lead to stereotypes, linguists said. If someone speaks with an accent associated with an Asian language, people may assume they work as engineers or computer scientists. If someone speaks with certain Spanish accents, people may think they are recent immigrants working in landscaping or the hospitality industry. Some accents are more desirable than others, said UC Berkeley linguistics professor Robin Lakoff. For example, a French accent evokes images of romance and elegance. A British accent -- the "Queen's English" version -- suggests superiority and sophistication. An Australian accent brings to mind adventure and fun.

Good or bad, it sounds that accent speaks for itself.

Putin Does Speak English

After my last blog entry, I got really curious about the Russian President Putin's English skill. What a better way to tell it than hearing him giving a speech in English?

Over three months ago, Putin went to Guatemala and spoke in front of the delegates of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He was pitching for hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia's Black Sea resort Sochi. The presentation was five-minute long, delivered in English, expect the last one or two sentences in French (I guess).

During Putin's speech, his facial expression was animated, his hand gestures were assertive, and his accent was, well, thicker than the winter snow on the Sochi mountains. Your ears have to be tuned in with a typical Russian accent to completely understand Putin's pitch. And it didn't help that he tried to talk fast. I guess learning a foreign language like a circus bear can only get you that far.

But that's far enough for the delegates of the IOC. Sochi won the honor unexpectedly, beating the front runner, the South Korean resort of PyeongChang, by just four votes.

The polar bear was dancing after the IOC's announcement. Might ride on a bike too.

Learn Like a Circus Bear

When Vladimir Putin first stationed in East Germany as a KGB officer in 1985, he didn't speak German. By the time he returned to the Soviet Union five years later, he was bilingual.

How did he do it?

According to a AFP report, it had little to do with the legendary KGB training school. He elaborated:

"In five years, even someone with average language ability can master a foreign language -- like the bear that goes to the circus and learns to ride a bicycle,"

Train like a bear in a circus apparently worked. Now, the Russian President, Putin also got English under his belt. Plus, he can speaks a few French words, according to the same report.

When Henry Talks, Everybody Listens

Henry is Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State under President Nixon and Ford. He had since left the Washington a long time ago and has been making money. But he keeps his profile high in the public scene by doing interviews often with media.

Kissinger always has something to say about the current affair and diplomacy. He's known for being a master of political strategic thinking. So when he talks, everybody listens. Or at least the Washington does.

He got on Charlie Rose's show and talked for an hour. People tuned in to hear his view about the war in Iraq and other national security issues. I wasn't that interested in his views. But I was fascinated by his accent. Listen with me.



Kissinger emigrated to the U.S. from Germany when he was young. Should he have had stayed in Europe, he, being a Jew, could have lived a completely different life in Nazi Germany. Or might well be a short one.

America has been a great country for immigrants.

Mac vs. PC and American vs. British

Watching TV ads Mac vs. PC is fun. The ads is simple and sleek--two guys standing next to each other, dressed remarkably different, and chatting casually to make fun of each other. Depending on which generation you are, or what type of a computer you use, you are bond to like at least one of them.

Then I watched the British version of the ads. Exactly same setup, equally sleek, but one thing is bloody different. They chat with a strong British accent. Although neither guy has said "bloody" once, the feel for their conversation is just different.

Exactly what and how, I can't articulate. Not the way I can tell the different feel between Mac and PC.

Yankee:


Jack:

An Accent Induction

I didn't understand why Steven Speilberg would direct the movie The Terminal. It's just not his type. Being a legendary director as Speilberg is, he can cast any super start he wants. I guess that was the only reason Tom Hank played the lead role in the movie.

Hank's the performance isn't one of his best. Disappointed with the movie, I was nonetheless impressed by Hank's ability to fake an English with thick eastern European accent. Sure, manipulating voice is an essential skill that every actor should process, but I didn't expect an accent can be acted out consistently.

In an interview at NPR, Hank mentioned what the accent was based upon and how he did it. You can listen to his interview here at NPR.

Hard to Understand Soft English

Even if you have mastered the standard English, you may still have big trouble to understand an American if he talks a soft English, which the comedian George Carlin prefected in this stand-up gig:

What Is Cool In Trendy Beirut

First of all, I've never thought of Beirut being trendy. Admitted, I've never been to the Middle East before, and I don't think I have any friend from Lebanon. But I've watched way too much network evening news on TV. Somehow, Beirut came through to me as a perpetual war zone. At any give time, either someone was bombing somewhere in the city, or someone was talking about the bombing deemed to start soon.

If that's what Beirut is trendy of, I would think bullet-proof vest be the coolest thing, if not the most necessary one. I was way off on both fronts.

According to this report from Toronto Star's Middle East Bureau, Beirut is a charming city:

"Despite the pummelling it has suffered during a succession of wars, Beirut continues to boast an array of continental charms, including fine restaurants, an exuberant nightlife, a sophisticated café culture, and enduring ties to a certain former imperial power whose capital is the Paris of Europe."

So, guess what's cool in Lebanon's capital?

The same article says:

"English is cool," said a Western diplomat in Beirut. "If you're hip and you're young, you speak English."

You do if you are Lebanese.

According to Christian Merville, an editorial writer at L'Orient Le Jour, Lebanon's only French-language daily newspaper, English has incontestablement (indisputably) supplanted French as the language of status in this resolutely status-conscious land. Or, as Merville, puts it: "Rambo has replaced Rimbaud."

The article offers a few explanations, some of which are just usual suspects, such as that English is the lingua franca of global business and commerce, or that Hollywood has conquered the world earlier and more effective than Pentagon ever had.

But I found the following view laid out in the article is much more plausible:

At the same time, Lebanese citizens who may be contemplating an international move – as many do – are far more likely to be accepted as immigrants in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada or the United States than they are by France.

"English," said a French-speaking diplomat, "is a lot more useful if you want to go abroad."

If Pentagon's success, or failure rather, continually lags off Hollywood's in that region, English could soon be desperately cool in many neighbors of Beirut.

If You Don't Speak Seven Languages

If someone can speak seven different languages besides her native tongue, it's safe to say that she was born with a great talent; sometimes, it doesn't have to be a linguistic talent.


If you don't speak it, fake it.

It Takes Two Generations

Linda Furiya, a columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle's Food page, grew up in rural Indiana in 1960s. She could be just another mid-western girl who's fond of farmland.

Not a Linda with last name Furiya. She's a second generation Japanese-American, living with the parents who speak heavy-accented English. Even if they spoke a perfect English, back to the 60s, they would surely stand out in rural Indiana, as exotic as a bamboo tree sticking out in a corn field.

Not a surprise, Linda has a good story to tell. She wrote a memoir about her childhood. The book is titled Bento Box In The Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood In Whitebread America.

It's about her girlhood, but she talked about her mother's ordeal of struggling with English. Here is the excerpt she was reading at an event in San Francisco:


Perhaps, millions more immigrants have gone through the similar ordeal that Linda's mother had. Only that hers got written, thanks to the second-generation who overcame the language barrier, and the shame of talking about it openly.

Comedy

Someone said joke is the sudden death of an intermediate language learner. I found it to be so true.

I don't remember how many times I smiled politely or even pretended to laugh at some English jokes I didn't quite get. It became such a bad habit that I got caught once by my cousin. We were watching a comedy, a Hollywood movie, when she asked me what the actor just said that made me laugh. I looked at her confusingly. "Was I laughing? Well then, never mind."

I felt lucky she was the one asking the question. Native speakers usually wouldn't question you. They assume you, an intermediate learner who can speak fluent English, should already have the cultural knowledge and background to under the jokes they are telling, for example, knowing a main character from a popular TV program in the 60s or 70s.

Non-native speakers can easily get tripped on those. I found watching lots of comedies help. Not the homemade YouTube videos, (because they are harder to understand and some were just nuts), but rather TV sitcoms, stand-up comedies, etc.

One of my Chinese friends is a natural born comedian. Being at the center of every party we had, he'd be cracking jokes all evening long, in Chinese of course. One day, after being in US for almost 10 years, he finally announced: "I can do it now! I can crack jokes in English now!" No small amount of achievements, believe it or not.

Joke doesn't have to be sudden death if we learn to understand it and tell it too.

CNN Reports: Speak Chinglish

John Vause, the corespondent of CNN's Beijing Bureau, had a piece on Chinglish a bit while ago. It cracked anchors Kiran Chetry and John Roberts up, despite they both tried hard to stay subdued.


I've been wondering about the effectiveness of the government's campaign to address the issue. John Vause should do a follow-up piece.

But, long time no see.