One of the most common mistakes my students make in speaking English isn’t their fault. They’re just doing what they’ve been taught. But they’ve been taught wrong.
I call my battle to correct their errors The War on Pink-uh.
Nearly all of my students have learned the Roman alphabet and the basics of phonics by the time they start studying with me. Their well-meaning teachers have taught them “T sounds like tuh; P sounds like puh; and K sounds like kuh.” My students have learned these sounds very well–but unfortunately, they have learned them as voiced consonants, as I have written here. Little wonder, then, that as we work through the color words, we get hung up on pink:
Me: What color is it?
Student: It’s pink-uh.
Me: Pink.
Student: Pink-uh.
Me: No, not Pink-UH. Pink!
Pause
Student: Pink-uh
Me: [facepalm]
I spend more time trying to fix pronunciation of that word than any other. Oddly, my students rarely say “black-uh,” probably because it doesn’t require them to put two consonant sounds together.
So please, all you preschool and kindergarten teachers out there: T is not tuh, P is not puh, and above all, K is not kuh. Turn off the voice on those, would you?
Jim, great to follow your journey. Hugs and continue your blog!
I’ve always wondered why some speakers of Asian languages say that.
Hi Jim,
I understand your frustration with the “uh”.
On the other hand, what we really want is communicative competency, so if your students are communicating effectively, I wouldn’t slow them down by correcting every mispronunciation. You may find that in doing so, you sacrifice fluency for minor gains in better pronunciation.
One of the reasons this happens is the interference of Mandarin with English; Mandarin allows fewer consonant endings than English, so many Mandarin speakers have a problem with words that end with consonant sounds. A good explanation can be found here:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/chinese/materials/352/chinesesyllable.html
Hi Beth,
Thanks for that resource. And yes, I would say that there has to be a balance between fluency and accuracy such that harping on every mispronunciation would be counterproductive.
Jim
Hi James… I share your frustration. However, this is caused by way syllables are built in Korean. Korean syllables can end with stop consonants, as in 흑 (dirt) – but when that combines with another syllable that begins with a vowel or subject/object particles (these also begin with nouns) a phonological rule moves the consonant to the initial position of the next syllable, as in 밖에 pronounced as 바케. The result is that learners add a vowel to stop consonants that end words. Some more examples are Hite /hait(schwa)/ or hite-uh, talk – tok-uh, roomate-uh….
You might want to try helping students to produce pink as one syllable, with the voiceless /k/ on the end. In some other words, where the final consonant is closed (pit), show them that you completely obstruct air from leaving your mouth with the final /t/ sound. If you hold a thin piece of paper, or a feather, in front of your lips when you say pit, students can see that no air escapes when you make the final /t/.
Good luck!
Oops, now I see that your students are Chinese… Koreans do the same thing (PInk-uh) and that threw me off. I suspect that the cause is the same though.
Blame it on phonics instructions with trying to isolate sounds instead of blending them. Items in isolation are never good.
I teach 7th grade in Shenzhen, China. One of my recent vocabulary words was “scenic”. Many wanted to say “skennik”. So I pointed out the “c” is silent, and that most often, the “sk” sound is followed by and “h” (“sch”). After class, I had a student say “Scenic is like science. Why not just say ‘sience’?” I explained how that would be pronounced, and she said “Oh! So many rules! I might as well be an American learning Chinese!” I feel the kids memorize words, whereas they ought to learn rules; e.g one n or two n’s (pining/ pinning).
As someone mentioned above, we have the same issues here in Korea. My students also do the “f u”, which I hate. The other thing is pronouncing “e” at the end of many words…orangeeeeeee, luncheeeee…. 🙂