Hello everyone,

In my last post I mentioned the actual physical exercise that acceptable pronunciation requires. Today I will touch on something close to that: the way we pronounce English words in everyday Spanish. Why? Because it influences our pronunciation of those very words when we speak English.

Spain has a long, sad tradition of mispronouncing foreing terms. I’m fully aware that we are not alone in this respect but our particular situation is truly embarrassing. In the days where our country had no direct contact with the English-speaking world it may have been understandable to hear atrocious pronunciations of popular names like John Wayne. By the time Tom Cruise became a household name we were not that isolated. Still, nobody knew how to pronounce that surname and those of us who did were inevitably mocked. We then joined the Erasmus program, embraced the Internet and welcomed the launch of digital television. All of a sudden real English was just a click away and I figured everything would go back to “normal”. Boy was I wrong!

In 2017 we still say U2 in Spanish [u:dos]. We’re probably the only country in the world that can’t say Spiderman right. The word meme (coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976) reached Spain in 2015 (in its “media” meaning) and, of course, it was pronounced [meme] pretty much like “memez”, but without the final interdental. Incidentally the English word sounds [mi:m], not exactly a challenge for a Spaniard. I’ve had many conversations about this topic and, quite typically, someone will always mention that we can pronounce a loanword in any way we choose to because, technically, the moment we borrow a term it is not foreign anymore. Even if they have a point I still believe that our pronunciation of Spiderman is just laughable but, okay, fair enough.

The troubling thing about this widespread approach to foreign words, however, is that it somehow bleeds into the English that students use in the classroom. Not only that, many Spanish people roll their eyes or make snide remarks whenever somebody dares to pronounce an English loanword in a way that, even using Spanish phonemes, attempts to reproduce its original sound. In my experience reality seems to be a faraway thing that belongs to native speakers and pretentious Spaniards. Therefore “regular people” resort to a kind of “fantasy English” in which Reebok rhymes with book, Gmail is read in Spanish but Hotmail is not, socialite is not even perceived as an English word and is often pronounced in French and LinkedIn becomes simply impossible for an English speaker to recognize. As a result of all this mess, time and again we, teachers, have to explain how to pronounce basic words like wi-fi or vintage to wide-eyed students who have never heard “the real thing”.

This article published on El País just last Monday, tackles exactly this problem. Is this depressing state of affairs going to change in the foreseable future? I’m afraid not. Only a couple of days ago a very young TV host made Yosemite rhyme with might.

The gymnastics of pronunciation

It is not easy to narrow down the multiple factors that explain successful learning but some of them are fairly obvious. Exposure to the target language is key and so is work on pronunciation as well as sheer frequency (every day). If you use English (in any way) on a daily basis you will get used to it. The force of habit will make you familiar with expressions that eventually will “sound right”. No grammatical explainations there, no logic, no reasoning. If you become accustomed to hearing I should have known one day you will simply find yourself saying it.

As one of you said in the classroom, speaking a second language involves a certain degree of “acting”. Yes. Acting. I totally agree. What should we understand by "acting"? Well, let’s see. What do actors do? One could say they pretend to be someone else for the duration of a show but an alternative description would point out the fact that actor do things on stage they don't usually do in their real lives. The same principle applies to a language learner. You are expected to do things that you don’t usually do in your “L1 life”. I’m not going to try and question the very concept of personal identity (which is complicated enough) but let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you are the person that you usually are. It sounds like a stupid platitude but… think of it for a second. When somebody does something “out of character” we are quick to justify the person's behavior by saying “he did all those things but he was not himself because at the time he was going through a nasty divorce”.

He was not himself. What does it really mean? It means “he normally does not do those things” or “the Mike that I know doesn’t do those things”.

So let’s just assume that you are a person that has a certain set of skills, someone who enjoys doing certain things, etc… In short, you are used to doing certain things. You don’t devote your free time to melting plastic, practicing ninja moves or playing the theremin. That’s NOT “who you are”. So… placing your tongue in a way that allows you to sound out the only consonant in the word Asia (you have two options, by the way) is not something that you typically do because pronouncing the English sibilants is something that “your mouth is not used to doing”. Your facial muscles, your tongue, etc. need to learn to do something unusual and since you can’t possibly pronounce the sound [m] without closing your lips together, (ask your ventriloquist friends to verify that) I believe you should make a decision: “I’m going to act as if I was an English speaker”. You are going to be an actor.

Check out this video that my friend Antton sent me some weeks ago. Pay attention to the way he moves his mouth. That is exactly the kind of "gymnastics" I’m talking about.

N.B. Those of you who are not familiar with the theremin can click right here to become better acquainted with that instrument