Name: Preetha Sriram

Module: 4

Section: A

Question: 3

English Pronunciation problems for Indian learners

Now a days, English is one of the most commonly leant foreign language in the

world. English is a part of curriculum in many countries. Though, English is taught from a

young age, other than native speakers of English, most of the people leaning English have

pronunciation problems. The problem occurs because when English is taught as second

language at schools, the students do not get the necessary exposure of the outside world like

listening or speaking in English. They are mostly surrounded by people speaking their L1.

Moreover, the teacher themselves also might have the same L1 and they teach English as a

subject and not as a language. This results in problems like the learners have large vocabulary

database but have no idea how to use them. This is quite different from the way of how

English is being taught as a foreign Language. When it is learnt as a foreign language,

English is the target language of the place they are going to use it. This exposure is

completely different from how it is learnt at school where English is a subject.

In India English is offered as a compulsory second language in most of the schools.

The most common method they use in schools is by using Grammar Translation Method (GT

method). Though the children can recognize the alphabets, they do not recognize the different

phonemes or sounds that English pronunciation includes. English is a stress timed language

whereas most of the Indian languages are syllable timed language.

 Today I am going to talk about a set of students that I am currently handling. They are

Tamil speaking students around the age of 9 to 10 years. They have been taught English

alphabets and are at elementary level. While teaching them, I found they have a much

accented pronunciation in English. This may be because Tamil is a phonetic language

whereas English is not. English is actually morpho phonemic language as stated in the

following two citations,

It is important to understand that English is not a phonetic language. So we often do

not say a word the same way it is spelled. (Essberger)

English is in fact a morpho-phonemic language: a code that represents both sound

and meaning. (Eide)

When teaching English alphabets, they use a chart that is similar to the one given

below:

(Maskara)

Some of the pronunciation difficulties that I found with these learners are listed

below:

1. The Difference between /v/ and /w/: In Tamil there is only one letter to denote the

/v/ sound. As shown from the above reference, Tamil does not have a /w/ sound

and they use the same as /v/ sound to pronounce both /v/ and /w/. So the word
 watch will be said as vatch. It can be rectified by teaching them the correct

articulation of the sound, by indicating the correct lip movement and the

formation and the difference between how /v/ and /w/ are pronounced.

2. Some of the sounds that contain aspirations, like /p/, /t/, /k/ lack aspirations. The

puff of air that is used to produce the plosive sound is missed. This is not much of

a noticeable problem.

3. Since there is not much difference between how they pronounce /i/ and /y/, most

of the /i/ sound will be pronounced with /y/ in it. For example east will be said as

/yi:st/. This requires them to practice a lot of minimal pairs and identifying the

differences between them.

4. They have problem pronouncing the // because they do not have the sound in their

language. So the /s/ sound will be used in place for // sounds. For example, the

word cash will be pronounced as cas. Another similar example would be shoe

which they often pronounce it as sue.

5. They also have trouble pronouncing the /z/ sound as the around is not present in

the Tamil language. They tend to use /j/ instead of /z/ in their words.

6. They have trouble differentiating the sounds between /t/ (voiceless) // (voiceless)

and // (voiced). So they have trouble pronouncing the words tin, thin and

then.

7. The have trouble in pronouncing the final cluster /l/. This may be because in

Tamil all the letters in a word are pronounced and stressed, so when they try

reading English, they try stressing the sounds of all the letters in the word and the

final l sounds tend to get more rolled. This may also be caused due the fact that

Tamil has three different /l/ sounds as shown below as stated in Tamil IPA:
 similar to "l" in let, but with the tongue
l l
touching the back of the front teeth

similar to "l" in let, but with the tongue curled

back

like "r" in rotten, but with the tongue curled

back

(Tamil IPA)

8. They also have trouble pronouncing the final consonant sound /f/. They do not

have the /f/ sound in Tamil and with reference from the chart of English is taught

to them, most of the final /f/ is replaced with /p/ sound. So the word graph or

coffee is pronounced as grap or kopi. This could also be a problem with

initial /f/ sound. For example fit might be pronounced as pit.

9. They have trouble differentiating the sounds between // and /:/. So they

pronounce cot and caught in a similar manner.

10. Some of the diphthongs are pronounced in the same manner as monophthongs. So

they pronounce the words dead and dad in a similar manner. Another similar

example would be head and had.

11. When pronouncing the diphthongs, the sounds are not the same as how a native

speaker uses them. For example when we pronounce baby it is /bei:bi/ but when

a Tamil speaker pronounces the word, it is said as /be:bi/ and similarly a potato

which should be /peteiteu/ will sound as /pote:to/.

12. Also as discussed earlier, Tamil is a syllable timed language compared to English

which is a stress timed language. So most of the Tamil speaker try to stress every

syllable of the word. Or sometimes the stress might fall on the wrong syllable.
 For example, Tamil speakers tend to put stress on the first syllable of the word,

ho`tel where the stress should fall on the second syllable is pronounced `hotel.

13. Also in English the stress position indicates the grammatical function of the word.

For example, conduct can either a noun (kndkt) or a verb (kndkt) but for a

Tamil speaker it is kndkt for both. (Maskara)

The above are few of the problems for the Tamil speakers. There are also accent

issues where the learners tend to use, an unintentional /j/ sound before most of the words or

add a /u/ sound to most of the words that ends with consonants. These all are the major

problems that are caused in English learning for Tamil speakers, because English is taught to

them without the proper introduction of the different phonetic structures in English. These

errors can be rectified by properly teaching them the different phonetic structures of the

English language and repeated practice in minimal pairs and explaining the different

articulation of the sound in detail.

Bibliography
Eide, Denise. English is a Morpho-Phonemic Language . 02 11 2012. 13 8 2017.
<https://www.logicofenglish.com/blog/48-morphology-vocabulary/265-english-is-a-
morpho-phonemic-language>.

Essberger, Josef. English is not Phonetic. 2001. 13 8 2017. <https://www.englishclub.com/esl-

articles/200104.htm>.

Maskara, Reena. Introducing English Pronunciation Teaching in Indian Educational System Why
and How. 3 3 2013. 15 8 2017.
<http://www.languageinindia.com/march2013/reenaenglishindiafinal.pdf>.

Tamil IPA. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Tamil>.

http://www.doctorsspeakup.com/content/speakers-indian-languages