#mothertongueinfluence

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What are Mother Tongue Influence and Its Impact?

What are Mother Tongue Influence and Its Impact?

Does your mother tongue influence your English-speaking capability?

Have you ever observed that your proficiency in English is one of the most crucial requirements for the business sector to accept you as an employee? Being illiterate in English can result in you not being taken seriously, being made fun of, being trapped in a position on the corporate ladder, and even being turned down for a job even though you meet the requirements. Consequently, benefit from mother tongue influence.

Having an MTI can lead to the same situation in the present. It may occasionally make you feel embarrassed and drain your confidence.

Mother Tongue Influence: What Is It? It is one’s first language spoken by them right from birth which influences their second language. For example, English. Each Language has its patterns, tone and sounds. The daily use of our mother tongue can affect our capability in speaking and learning a new language.

How to neutralize Mother Tongue Influence?

Effective ways to overcome the drawbacks caused by MTI are described in the following points.

Start to Speak This might be difficult to do. Start with simple words used to describe an object. Then, move on to saying small phrases and gradually start making whole sentences. For instance, start using the word ‘Table’. After that, start using phrases associated with it like ‘Table and chair’. Consider your words carefully and keep practising in this situation.

Regular Reading can help with Mother Tongue Influence You can begin by reading the newspaper and working your way up to magazines and books. To better understand the language, make sure the material you are reading is written in straightforward, understandable terms that are relevant to you.

Fun Educational Tasks Frequently watch English-language movies and news. This can assist you in concentrating on how effectively the dialogue's words are being used. Repeat the conversation while focusing on the pronunciation until you can utter the term clearly. Make an effort to recognise each syllable's precise sound.

Practice with a friend to increase your command of the mother tongue Do you know someone who speaks English well? And you observe that their speech lacks the effect of their mother tongue influence? Get comfortable speaking English to them. Ask them to correct you while also assisting you in understanding your errors. Additionally, pay close attention to the way they utter the words.

Utilize a device guide Do you feel awkward working with a friend? You can't seem to acquire any advice from anyone around you. Read passages from magazines, newspaper articles, or short stories. Every time you read, be careful to capture your voice on a voice recorder, laptop, cell phone, or another convenient recording device. Play the recording after you've done so and pay attention to the terms you kept mispronouncing. Use Google to assist you to comprehend the correct pronunciation of any such words you come across. Once you sound perfect, correct your pronunciation and repeat the exercise.

Analysis plus focus equal articulation Pay attention to how you use your words when you speak. Are you pronouncing them correctly and using them in a meaningful context? Consider whether the word you want to use fits the situation in which you want to use it. Consider your words before you speak, and be mindful of your pronunciation. This enables you to use language appropriately and to pronounce words and phrases in the wrong context.

Determine Complicated Words Identify the terms that you have trouble pronouncing or that you speak differently from other people. Make sure you practise using the appropriate sound, which is readily available on Google if your pronunciation has an MTI.

The Lip Motion Improve your pronunciation and avoid letting your native language affect your accent. You can correct your lip movement while saying the words by using a mirror. For instance, while pronouncing words beginning with the letter "W," like "watch," we need to circle our lips. The same goes for words beginning with "V" (Vase), which require us to slightly bite our bottom lip.

Message the coach in her mother tongue It is challenging to pronounce the sounds "[ng], [v], [θ], [р], [z], [ʧ], [ʃ], [t], [ʤ], [ʒ], [l] and [w]”. Sometimes we don't utilise these sounds in our own tongues. Additionally, nouns' plural forms either finish in a "/s/," "/z," or "/iz" sound. Accurate use of these sounds might be challenging. The secret to success in these circumstances is accurate pronunciation practice under competent instruction.

It might be challenging to learn to communicate in a language that is not your mother tongue. The influence of your original language can be lessened, though, if you're committed and eager to study. Develop sound reading and speaking habits by practising them. Don't be scared to ask for assistance from your friends who can speak the language well if you want to sharpen your abilities.

Can contact Language Coaches aid in neutralising MTI?

Getting professional assistance from licenced coaches is a professional way to work on your MTI. Proper instruction makes it easier to stay on the right road and master new skills so you can avoid pronouncing words incorrectly. Working with a coach can help you improve your speaking abilities and your ability to communicate effectively in English.

Contact us on PracUp for expert assistance. Through repetition, we rebuild your English-speaking abilities. We put a lot of effort into correcting MTI-based mistakes and training you to be independent of the effect of your mother tongue.

Set up a demo session.

​https://www.pracup.com/book-demo

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On Mother Tongue Influence: Getting it Right with my Name

In the year 2012, working on my mother tongue influence was a priority consideration. I aspired to improve the English I spoke that so much smelled of my mother's milk. It was important for me to come out of the spell of my mother tongue and reclaim English the way the British or an American processed it with flair. I made it, through a lot of humiliations, not to become a British or an American, but someone who can speak English without any regional inflexion. I am happy that today my TOEFL and IELTS speaking sessions do attest to my English speaking abilities besides numerous other native speakers of the language. I pronounced my name as "Leenda" and not "Linda" or "Indeea" and not "India." My then team leader, Bradley, was a well-meaning manager. But when he laughed at my poor pronunciation, it did hurt me a lot. Maybe that was his strategy to invite everyone to laugh at me so that I took the voice and accent training seriously. Once Bradley corrected me when I said, "I want to say you something" instead of "I want to tell you something." Needless to say, the "tell" was often an interchange between "tail" and "tale." I must mention that I was always a loudmouth if that is the word you use for women who mean spade a spade, loud and clear. So with that kind of an attitude and a rebellious soul, one day, I took the Oxford dictionary to the office. I had to prove that it was "/ˈɡɑːdɪən/" for "guardian" and the quality analyst who rated the callers on their pronunciation must review my score for better. Everyone laughed at me. This time, it was another team leader who we called Jude. Jude was a kind man, and so although he didn't ridicule me the way other's did, he was very complicit. In 2010, I moved to Hyderabad from Kolkata and joined Bank of America. The experience was totally the opposite. I was talking to native Americans and counselling them on their mortgage repayment. Not only I impacted the highest return by counselling them in their most wretched situation, but I also gained a lot of love and recognition from everyone I spoke with. Here, Radhika, my operations manager in BoA, can testify how I always topped in customer's recall of having spoken with a legit English speaker. When I was in BoA, Jude was working at HSBC, Kolkata. We happened to connect over LinkedIn. We also got to talk. It was then, Jude expressed an apology that I never expected. I always admire Jude as much as I admired Bradley and envied their linguistic skills; how they spoke so fast like those white newsreaders on FOX. Jude confided referring the "Oxford dictionary incident, "I remember you till date because of your daring to prove to the native speakers that /ˈɡɑːdɪən/ was not a mispronunciation—that you were working on to improve your language based on the resource you had." That recognition was due for long, although much forgotten given that my performance at BoA garnered a lot of appreciation. I had tears in my eyes when Jude broke open the long-kept silence around the mispronunciation of the word "guardian." I feared if I would be forever stereotyped the way Bengalis have always been stereotyped the way they spoke in English with lots of vowels and typical native emotions. So, how did I improve my English pronunciation and get rid of my mother-tongue influence? Earlier, I would mostly drag my vowels the way Bengalis would emphasize on the vowel articulation. This time, I dropped every vowel sound. For example, I learnt that I am Linda and not Leenda after I practised pronouncing my name without the stressing too much on the vowel sound nestled between "L" and "N." Basically, it was "L + N + D + A." Once this became my habit, I ran the habit over my entire vocabulary, existing and new. Needless to say that now I sounded more like a consonant human; my pronunciation lacked a certain softness induced by vowels. Very naturally, I decided to return the vowels to the words they belonged to because separation is a very unkind thing. This time, my pronunciation got better with the re-introduction of the vowels. I could proudly confirm with my colleagues that I sounded perfectly alright if I pronounced "Indian" as a bi-syllabic word instead of a tri-syllabic. Much later in 2017, my British landlady exclaimed, "Oh, you speak so well, you don't sound like an Indian!" I replied, "I appreciate your mother tongue influence, the hangover of 200 years of domination! Today, I don't care for mother-tongue influence or father-tongue or the white-colonial tongue. Though this train of learning intends to cover a journey beyond my lifetime, I am proud just to have a voice. If anything, I care for communication that is easy and delivers my objective, makes my clients happy. I am truly blessed to be a brown Indian English speaking Bengali woman writing books and articles in English referenced by English scholars across literature, supply chain, Industry 4.0 and others. Like Oprah Winfrey says, I am full, and I can share with you my experience, help you overcome challenges. Read the full article