A Taiwanese Speaking English: Common Speaking Issues

A Taiwanese Speaking English 1

A Taiwanese Speaking English
Common Speaking issues experienced in Speaking English

Meng-Chun Tsai
BUCP104
Douglas Parsons
December 10, 2013

A Taiwanese Speaking English 2

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….3
Pronunciation……………………………………………………………………......4
“d & t”……….……………………………………………………………...4
“es”…………………………………………………………………………4
Vocabulary……………………………………………………………………….. 5
“ee & ea”……..…………………………………………………………….5
“th”………………………………………………………………………….5
Grammar……………………………………………………………………………..6
Tense……………………………………………………………….………6
Adverb….…………………………………………………………………..6
Plural form…………………………………………………………………7
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………7
Reference…………………………………………………………………………….8

A Taiwanese Speaking English 3

Abstract
People live in the world of communication. Communication occurs through the medium of languages. Speaking of language, English is the most worldwide language in the world. It’s a global language. However, English is easy for native speakers while English is difficult to learn for second language learners.
Even people who master English in his/her own country maybe make some mistakes, especially in speaking. For instance, Chinese and English are very different in structure, the differences between English and Chinese vowels, students are not aware of the lack of long and short vowels in Mandarin Chinese which might have a negative effect on English vowels. ( Yiing, I. 2011)
I will discuss the common speaking mistakes people from my country make.
There are three main mistakes made pronunciation errors, vocabulary errors, and grammar errors.
In terms of pronunciation, the biggest difference is that Taiwanese always dismiss the consonants, like /t/, /d/, or “es”, they do not pronounce it..
Vocabulary errors is also a common error, there are many consonants Taiwanese cannot distinguish, like /z/, /s/, /θ/ and the “ee” & ”ea” are the same pronunciation.
The grammar errors usually occur in “past tense” put the “adverb” in wrong place and the countable nouns “plural form”
The common errors are closely related. Any of the errors influence each other and make English to be incomprehensible.

A Taiwanese Speaking English 4

Pronunciation
Pronunciation is one of the most common mistakes in learning language. There are some particulars need to be considered, for example, vowels, consonants and speech sounds. There are vowels and consonants in both Mandarin Chinese and English, but they have many differences in articulation, even the tone is expressed in different way.
For Taiwanese speakers, the two kinds of the common pronunciations’ errors are that we always omit the consonants, like /t/ and /d/, and “es”, and that they do not pronounce it.
From my personal experience, my teacher always said we don’t need to pronounce the /d/, /t/ when we are speaking. This is wrong, because in Canada I learned I must say the /t/ and /d/. From the recording, I have continued making this mistake, not saying the final consonant. I said “about” in “a-bou”, “connect” in “conneck”. (Venditti N. 2011) Another error I made in the record is “es”, I always forget to pronounce /s/ at the end of the words, like “landscapes” in “landscap”. People may know what you what your meaning, but once it’s related to the plural form, it will be a serious mistake. The best solution to resolve the pronunciation problem is listening and practicing continually. Listen more carefully to my speech sounds. Focus carefully on how you pronounce words – what sounds you make and what rhythm you make. Try to compare it to native English speakers. Think about what is different and what is the same. For many people the first step is learning to hear the difference between their own speech and a native a
Taiwanese Speaking English 5 speaker. (Taylor, G. 2013)
Try to use English everyday in our life. This can stimulate our behavior to always use English as habit in daily conversation.
Vocabulary
The other reason why we have the speaking problems is that people in my country misunderstand vocabulary. In other words, Taiwanese speakers have insufficient vocabulary. If we don’t know how to use the correct syllable for the vowels, it will occur with mistakes.
The problem with pronouncing certain sounds is related to vocabulary. For example, Taiwanese speakers have problems pronouncing “ee” & ”ea” like “eel” or “tweak” in the middle of the word. Actually, most of time they are the same pronunciation. But some Taiwanese speakers incorrectly pronounce” /il/ and /tw-a-k/.
For my personal experience, I always said “ee” and “ea” as the same sound /i/ or /I/, but some of my classmates in Taiwan said /e/ in the /ea/, because they thought it must be /a/ or /e/ pronunciation when we saw the word contains “a”.
The other example about vocabulary is /th/ at the end of a syllable. Taiwanese speakers typically have problems pronouncing words such as “loath” or “fifth”, which they may incorrectly pronounce as “loas”, “fifs”. We have difficulty distinguishing and pronouncing the / th/ sound. For instance, “fifth” may be pronounced as “fifs”.
For my personal experience, I sometimes made the mistake. In my recording, I didn’t use the word with which word.
To improve the vocabulary problem, we can listen to the Radio like Taiwanese Speaking English 6
BBC News, CBC News, or watching TV Shows. Training ourselves to learn more vocabulary as far as we can, and the most important thing is you need to read loudly to remember those vocabularies.
Besides that, keep in touch with someone who likes to talk in English in your class, because they have much more intention to perform English well. After a great amount of vocabulary training, we will learn more vocabularies and get used to using English in daily life.

Grammar
Many Taiwanese speakers of English appear to have a somewhat greater knowledge of grammar than some other countries. However, Taiwanese speakers still have many problems in correctly using the grammar that they “know” in their oral English. Taiwanese learners had more errors in using the simple past tense in their spoken grammar than other learners did. Those errors are caused by interference from their first language as well. (Tiittanen, M. 2011)
For my personal experience, I always forget to use the regular past tense “ed” endings when talking about things I have done in the past. From my recording, I said I “learn” not “ learned”.
The other mistake we usually made is put the “adverb” in wrong place. English has many parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb etc.). some of them are regular, but some of them are not. Colloquial expressions make it more difficult to learn, because for Taiwanese speakers are hard to use grammar in a sentence they are speaking. I sometimes put the adverb in front of the auxiliary verb or put it behind the verb. For example, I always can get a good grade in my high school.”
A Taiwanese Speaking English 7
To solve those problems is make sure we remember to use the past tense and focus on pronouncing sounds at the ends of your words correctly. It needs more practice and memorize the rules of grammar (Taylor, G. 2013)
In addition, there still are common grammar error Taiwanese speakers usually make which are countable nouns “plural form”. In other words, it is related to pronunciation “es”. Taiwanese speakers seldom said the “es” clearly in the sentence.
The best solution is continually practicing and using English, and when you do not understand something or a new word, you can write it down and read it repeatedly. Keep grammar in mind.
As a result, there are a number of resources and activities available to get around correcting these common speaking problems:
Group work: Group work increases the amount of time available for oral practice and allows more than one student to benefit from speaking time. Working in groups also lowers the inhibitions of shy students who are not comfortable speaking in front of the whole class.
Easy language: Simple language makes it easier for students to speak for longer without hesitation and gives them a sense of accomplishment. Essential vocabulary can be pre-taught or reviewed before the activity enabling students to fill-out their speech with more interesting sentences and rich language.
Interesting topic: Choosing a topic according to the interests of the class ensures student motivation. If the material and task instructions are presented clearly and enthusiastically students will be more likely to meet the challenge set for them.
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(Porter, Patricia and Grant, Margaret, 1992)

Conclusion
Although, there are many ways to improve English and decrease the errors in speaking English. From my point of view, the most efficient thing we can do is listening carefully first and keep practicing and practicing patiently.

Reference

Yiing, I. (2011). An analysis of pronunciation errors in English of six utar Chinese studies undergraduates.
Retrieved from http://eprints.utar.edu.my/264/1/EL-2011-0805055-1.pdf
PDF

Venditti N. (2011). Challenges of English Pronunciation for Chinese Speakers.
Retrieved from http://succeedinamerica.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/challenges-of-english-pronunciation-for-chinese-speakers/

Taylor, G. (2013). Top 6 English Pronunciation Tip for Mandarin Speakers.
Retrieved from http://www.starpronunciation.com/2013/02/tips-for-mandarin-speakers-chinese/

Tiittanen, M. (2011) Problems Chinese Speakers have learning spoken English.
Retrieved from http://doctormikeenglishcenter.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/problems-chinese-speakers-have-learning-spoken-english/ Porter, Patricia and Grant, Margaret, Communicating Effectively in English: Oral Communication for Non-Native Speakers, Heinle ELT 1992.