Journal: News & Comment

Permalinks to this entry: individual page or in monthly context. For more material from my journal, visit my home page or the archive.

If you are learning, um and er not

Here's a neat tidbit, part of an article sent to me by my good friend Alistair. English speakers tend to fill pauses in our speech with "um" and "er," but speakers of other languages use different filler sounds. Therefore:

English-speaking pupils learning foreign languages have a tendency to "um" and "er" in a way which is quite foreign to native speakers of the target language [...] using the correct alternatives gives an impression of fluency greater than that shown by pupils who avoid such utterances, but whose pronunciation is almost flawless.

So the best way to sound like you speak another language well is to make the right nonsense noises.

 |