Difficulty is in the Eye (and Ear and Mouth) of the Beholder

“Usted habla español bien. ¿Dónde lo aprendió?”

“Gracias. Aquí...en las escuelas aquí en los EE.UU.”

“Es bueno tener un médico que habla mi lengua, porque no hablo ni entiendo inglés.”

(el examen continúa)

“Pienso que inglés sea mucho más difícil que español.”

“¿De veras?—¿En qué manera?”

“Bueno, las palabras – no se dicen  como se escriben. En español, se dice una palabra exactamente como la se escribe. Y también, la ortografía es bien diferente. Pero, me gustaría saber el idioma, un día.”

“Sí, es bueno saber más que una lengua- especialmente en este mundo global.”

It surprised me when my patient said she thought English is a more difficult language to learn than Spanish. It made me think back to a quick search I did once a while back-- it was one of those days I had some down time and for interest’s sake decided to compare languages.  I looked up “most difficult languages to learn” (from an English speaker’s perspective) and what I saw didn’t shock me. In no particular order: the Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc, Hungarian, Icelandic (can you pronounce: Reykjavík?), Native American languages such as Apache, Cherokee, Choctaw and Navajo (incidentally, the Navajo language, due to its varying inflections, the existence of few native speakers and, at the time, the fact that it was an entirely oral and unwritten language, was used as a method of communication between US Marines during WWII, in an effort to hide military plans from the Japanese. The most skilled of Japanese decoders couldn’t break the Navajo communications during WWII).   Other languages making the difficult list include Polish, Russian and German followed by the romance languages.

But grammar rules and pronunciations aside, I personally feel a language is difficult to learn if it is significantly different in its rules, sound and structure to the one you grew up learning. Then again, anything different from what we know and are familiar with would seem daunting, minus any practice or experience.

In an effort to research more about language difficulty, specifically related to English and Spanish, I located an interesting article on the web: “The Differences Between English and Spanish,” which begins by stating that written English in and of itself is not problematic for the native Spanish speaker. However, the pronunciation, or phonology, causes several problems for a Spanish speaker learning English.   The length of the vowel, when pronounced in English, is very important to discerning the meaning of the word. Examples include:

sheep/ship

cat/cut/cart

fool/full

One personal example of this that I encountered in the office one time when asking a patient what pharmacy he uses:

“Quiero mandar la receta a la farmacia. ¿Cuál farmacia utiliza usted?”

“La una aquí en Garnerville...Drew-car. Pienso que sí. ‘Drew-car’.”

“Perdón, pero no conozco ‘drew-car’.  ¿Tenemos CVS...o Rite Aid...tal vez Walgreens?”

“No, no...hmmmm. Está ubicada cerca de la estación de gasolina. Ahí, en la carretera <202>. Drew-car.”

“<al pensar> ¡¡¡O!!! Usted quiere decir ‘True-Care’....True-Care Pharmacy!”

“<al reír> Sí, sí. Drew-car.”

This is particularly interesting to me, because there are several aspects of the English language that I take for granted as a native English speaker. But, if one can’t pronounce the subtle difference between the ‘tr’ of true and ‘dr’of drew, then he will not be understood by the listener.

The article continues by addressing the consonant sounds--which in general are not problematic for Spanish-speakers--except when used in particular instances, and other tricky nuances to the language:

a. Not pronouncing the end consonant hard enough:

            ie. “saying brish for bridge or cart for card ...”

b. Trouble deciphering phonetically similar sounding words like see/she or jeep/cheap/sheep..”

c. Problems with auxiliary verbs. Remember, in English the auxiliary, or helping, verb works with the main verb of the sentence to add clarity to the phrase. Auxiliary verbs, though used in Spanish, are not used as commonly in oral conversation. For example, in English:

            ie. Did he remember to put the garbage out?  Main verb: remember, auxiliary: did

            A Spanish speaker commonly makes this error when trying to say the same thing:

            ie. He remember to put the garbage out? The auxiliary is left out, and the sentence sounds wrong. There are only three auxiliary verbs in English: to be, to have, and to do, but using them appropriately is important to providing clarity to communication in English.

d. Inability to infer the spelling of a word in English from its pronunciation:

            In Spanish the sound of a word is strongly correlated to its spelling. As any native English speaker knows, this is not the case at all in the English language. For example:

            won, one  They’re pronounced the same, but the spelling and meaning are different

            their, there, they’re  Same concept

            And what of heteronyms? Words in English that are spelled the same, but when pronounced differently have different meanings, for example:

            bow  if said BAU: the front of a ship or to lower one’s head; if said BOH: a device for shooting arrows or a decoration for one’s hair

            contest  if said kahn-TEST: to argue;  if said KAHN-test: a competition

And the list goes on and on....

Researching more into my native English makes me appreciate more the difficulty that my Spanish-speaking patients encounter when in the process of learning the English language.  It gives me new insight into my own native tongue, and why certain concepts of my own Spanish learning come more easily than others.  I’m either aided or, conversely, tripped up by preconceived grammar and pronunciation rules molded and shaped by years of English education. Though there are some tools from our native tongues that we can take with us when embarking on new language learning, we invariably have to leave other concepts behind. Letting go of a lifetime of foundation can be scary, but it is precisely in the letting go that we evolve to something more unique and beautiful.

References

“Auxiliary (or helping) Verbs.” Ginger Grammar Rules. http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/verbs/auxiliary-or-helping-verbs/ (Accessed August 6, 2016).

Ellis, J. “Welcome to the Heteronym Homepage!” 6/1/96

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cellis/heteronym.html (Accessed August 6, 2016).

Shoebottom, Paul. “The Differences Between Spanish and English.” Frankfurt International School. http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/spanish.htm (Accessed July 31, 2016)

Wilsont, William R. “World War II: Navajo Code Talkers.” HistoryNet. 6/12/06 http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-navajo-code-talkers.htm (Accessed August 6, 2016).

Barn Owl. Courtesy: Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center