Help me: why Asian people have difficulties in speaking Eng?

There are huge differences between Asian and Romance languages (Which include English, French, Spanish, to name a few). There are sounds in English that are not found in Asian languages.
I would suppose that the best thing that you can do is to keep practicing speaking in English.

I remember a story about a Scandinavian actress, Inger Stevens. She went to a language coach, and did not have a bit of a trace of her Scandinavian roots in her speech. One day she signed on to play a part of a Scandinavian woman. She had to learn to speak with the Scandinavian accent all over again!

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Do you find that Europeans tend to sound like Asians?

I'd imagine it's just about the difficulty of learning a foreign language, especially as an adult. If the language is closer to yours (Spanish + Portuguese, say) it is probably easier, and if the language is further from yours (English and Japanese, say) it's probably harder. But I think that goes both ways -- that it's as difficult for an American who has learned Japanese to sound like a native as it is for a Japanese person who has learned American English to sound like a native.

Infants are taught the phonemes (the sound building-blocks of a language) by their parents, and past a certain age it's much much harder to adopt the phonemes of a foreign language.

Some people can do it of course, but it usually takes a LOT of practice.

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In general I notice that Asians use their own funky breed of intonation, always stressing the wrong syllables of words, and frequently skipping or interchanging the pronunciation of certain letters, such as "w" for "v"

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my problem
My problem is that i always forget the end consonant of a word,
For example, the word "student", i pronounce "studen",etc.
That is because my language doesn't have end sound.
And, I always forget the "s" sound for plural nouns. Uhm, can you suggest a method to remember them ?

thanks

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Stuh, I've had some Asian ESL students (Japanese and Chinese). The basic structure of Asian languages is far removed from the structure of English. Asian languages require an entirely different mindset, a whole different approach to communication. When you combine these fundamental differences with pronunciation differences, the results are that Asians have a great deal of difficulty learning English--and people who speak English have a great deal of difficulty in learning Asian languages.

Don't lose heart and don't give up. I suggest you keep trying and speak English as often as you can. The more you practice and hear the words in your own mouth, the easier it will become.

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I have two friends, landscape designers in the United States, who were born in Japan.

One is a woman younger than I am, I'd guess she is in her mid forties by now. She came to the US with her family just before she would have been entering advanced college in Japan. I met her some time later, she was part of a staff I coordinated - and her speech even then was perfect. I'm sure she is higher than I on some ladder now, but it is of no matter - she was smart, she was curious, and I hope she is now having her own happy family, as that was her dream.

Another was a fellow from a old time (read samarai) family in Japan. He also speaks colloquially in american english; when I studied with him, he goofed once in a while with 'L's. His design sense is fantastic, and the goof with the letter L is rare and only reasonable. Not important at all to all of us who were students or who worked with him.

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Roberta wrote:

Stuh, I've had some Asian ESL students (Japanese and Chinese). The basic structure of Asian languages is far removed from the structure of English. Asian languages require an entirely different mindset, a whole different approach to communication. When you combine these fundamental differences with pronunciation differences, the results are that Asians have a great deal of difficulty learning English--and people who speak English have a great deal of difficulty in learning Asian languages.

I don't know anything about Asian languages. Can you give a general example of how the structure is entirely different? When you break down a sentence, does it still tend to follow the general order of combinations of:

{Noun [modifiers] verb [modifiers] target}

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stuh505 wrote:

Roberta wrote:
Stuh, I've had some Asian ESL students (Japanese and Chinese). The basic structure of Asian languages is far removed from the structure of English. Asian languages require an entirely different mindset, a whole different approach to communication. When you combine these fundamental differences with pronunciation differences, the results are that Asians have a great deal of difficulty learning English--and people who speak English have a great deal of difficulty in learning Asian languages.

I don't know anything about Asian languages. Can you give a general example of how the structure is entirely different? When you break down a sentence, does it still tend to follow the general order of combinations of:

{Noun [modifiers] verb [modifiers] target}

ok, I will tell you the difference between Vietnamese language and English because i am from vietnam and i am studying English
- first my language doesn't have ending sound as i posted in previous posts. I'll post it again
think ---> thin
like ----> lie
that's how we pronounce when we don't remmember the ending sound
- second, viet words never change form as English words
in English , book --> books, which indicates plural form of book
in vietnamese, we add another word to indicate plural form
- in English, the verbs change their form according to tenses
work --> worked
in vietnamese, another word is added to perform this function
- English has no tones, vietnamese has six tones

Vietnamese language uses Latin letters whereas Chinese language uses characters. Each Chinese word has its own charater and one has to memorize all of them Cool

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Quote:

- first my language doesn't have ending sound as i posted in previous posts. I'll post it again
think ---> thin
like ----> lie

Aha, so that's why they do it. Well, now that you know, why do you still have a problem with it?

Quote:

- second, viet words never change form as English words
in English , book --> books, which indicates plural form of book
in vietnamese, we add another word to indicate plural form
- in English, the verbs change their form according to tenses
work --> worked
in vietnamese, another word is added to perform this function

It must be easy to learn!

Quote:

- English has no tones, vietnamese has six tones

That's very interesting...so there is a little less freedom when you speak?

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Stuh, I'm sorry if I led you to believe that I know Asian languages. What I said was based on the impression I got from my Asian students. Major differences in the approach to language. Sorry I can't be of more help.

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stuh505 wrote:

Quote:
- first my language doesn't have ending sound as i posted in previous posts. I'll post it again
think ---> thin
like ----> lie

Aha, so that's why they do it. Well, now that you know, why do you still have a problem with it?

uhm. But my problem is when i skim an artical, I cannot think of the ending sound.
When I speak, I always forget to pronounce the ending sound

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For one syllable words like think / dont / like, etc,

The tongue starts at the roof of the mouth, and the major sound is made as the tongue is released.

If you skip the ending sound, this leaves the tongue in the ready position to start the next word. You are probably used to this.

To get the ending sound the tongue has to go back up to the roof and release making a second sound for the ending, even though it is a 1 syllable world. Since it is 1 syllable, the two sounds are made quickly, as though they were one sound.

Try to think about not skipping that second contact, it might help.

Also try looking at words on paper and trying to find where the syllable break points go. Then as you are reading try incorporating this and using it to help you pronounce correctly. For every syllable it should be 1 basic sound.

For example:

(Stu) (H), (Im) (sor) (ry) (if) (I) (led) (you) (to) (be) (lieve) (that) (I) (know) (As) (ian) (lan) (guag) (es.) (What) (I) (said) (was) (based) (on) (the) (im) (press) (ion) (I) (got) (from) (my) (As) (ian) (stu) (dents.) (Maj) (or) (diff) (er) (enc) (es) (in) (the) (app) (roach) (to) (lan) (guage.) (Sor) (ry) (I) (cant) (be) (of) (more) (help.)

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The major problem for a lot of Asian countries is that students are taught with the worst system ever devised to learn a language; the grammar translation method. I'm not certain that this is what's used in Vietnam, Jckhoa, but it is in other Asian countries.

Confusing the target language [new language] with one's mother tongue means that students stay confused their whole lives. Asian children learn English perfectly, in a very short time when they are put in an immersion English situation.

Adults can do the same in a modified immersion type system.

While students feel that it's important to have great pronunciation, it isn't crucial to comprehension. Using proper structure and natural collocations, rather than direct translated collocations is much more important.

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Interesting....

I see what Msolga is saying about a different mindset. It is a different way of thinking about it.

For instance, when I watch a film in Spanish or French that has English subtitles, while I'm reading I can also expect where I'll hear that word spoken by the actor.
There are differences, like an adjective is after the noun in Spanish, before the noun in English, but basically it's the same thought process. I suppose what you would call a "European" or "Western" way of thinking.

When I watch an Asian film with subtitles, I'm not at all sure of the sentence structure.

For instance, I'll know a characters name is Chang, and the subtitle will come up in English, and I can see in English the word for the name is address, let's say, first thing in the dialogue. Yet, listening to the speaker, there's no way of telling where I'll hear the word Chang in their speach...in the beginning, middle, end...many times it sounds like that word is in an entirely different sentence.

jckhoa, I have a question for you...If the english structure of a sentence is basically Noun, Verb, Subject....what is the structure in your language.

Is there even a concept of "sentence"?

Also, what do you mean by "tone"? I don't understand when you say english has 1 and yours has 6.

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Chai Tea wrote:

jckhoa, I have a question for you...If the english structure of a sentence is basically Noun, Verb, Subject....what is the structure in your language.

Is there even a concept of "sentence"?

Also, what do you mean by "tone"? I don't understand when you say english has 1 and yours has 6.

My language also has the same structure as English, for example one sentence must have the structure Noun+Verb+Object, basically
Tones are the mark on top of a word.
For example: can , càn, cán, cản, cãn, cạn
Those are six tones of Vietnamese language. For each tone, one has to raise or lower the sound pitch adequately. You can picture them as musical notes
If you learn Mandarin, a Chinese dialect, you'll find that it has four tones

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Help me: why Asian people have difficulties in speaking Eng?

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