What is the most effective technique for making oneself understood by non-native English speakers?
January 17, 2011 8:40 AM   Subscribe

I only speak English and I live in a country where much of the English spoken is devoid of plurals and tenses and has a very limited vocabulary. In order to communicate most effectively, would I be better off speaking in technically correct sentences or simplifying my speech similarly?

Note I'm going for effectiveness rather than politeness, and I very much respect that my Hokkien/Mandarin/Hindi/Tamil/Bahasa is non-existent compared to everyone else's English. I'm genuinely interested to hear from ESL speakers and linguists about which is easier to understand.
posted by m1ndsurfer to Writing & Language (20 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I grew up speaking Russian until the age of six, when my family moved to America. Since my Russian has degraded, I've occasionally had to speak in broken English to my grandparents. Their English isn't good enough to understand complex (or even correct) English so when trying to explain something, I have to remove all articles and mispronounce words so that they understand the syllables better.
posted by griphus at 8:46 AM on January 17, 2011


Best answer: Say it correctly first, then simplify for clarity. You reinforce and perpetuate a cycle that will be hard to break for the party listening to you otherwise.
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:51 AM on January 17, 2011 [5 favorites]


Note: My experience is from training recent imigrants how to cook so they didn't have to wash dishes for the rest of their lives in the US.
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:54 AM on January 17, 2011


What Nanukthedog said. I'm a native speaker of English, but I have quite a few international friends with varying degrees of fluency in English. I found it's much better to say it correctly first *then* simplify for clarity if need be. Many non-native speakers of English understand more than they are able speak so if you automatically dumb-down your language you could be insulting their intelligence.
posted by patheral at 8:56 AM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]


I work with multiple countries (and languages) in Europe and find that if communication is the goal, I try to pronounce words like they do (if possible!). I mean, they are already speaking English for my benefit (and some of them speak it much more properly), so I would recommend speaking the way that gets the point across best. :) (Trying to find the nearest bathroom or bus stop is not the best time for grammar lessons, IMHO.)
posted by jillithd at 8:58 AM on January 17, 2011


If I'm not careful, I automatically mimic the speech patterns and even the accent of the people around me, to the point of speaking very strange sounding English.

I've always been quite horrified that someone might think I am making fun of them, but people with more dubious English have actually said that they understand me better when I'm doing this.
posted by emilyw at 8:59 AM on January 17, 2011


Seconding griphus, in my (non-professional) experience localizing my pronunciation has been the most effective single alteration I could make when speaking with non-native, non-fluent English speakers.

As Nanukthedog notes, I would do this after saying a word correctly first, being misunderstood, and then saying it with a local accent -- which would often lead to a conversation about how I pronounced it the first time, but in the meantime we got where we needed to go. (On preview, what jillithd said.)
posted by obliquicity at 8:59 AM on January 17, 2011


I taught Brazilians English a while back and I would find myself dumbing down the language, using odd cognates, and just generally mangling my mother tongue in order to get my point across. Then I would realize what I was doing and be embarrassed.

I agree with Nanukthedog. Set a good example of well-spoken english, then repeat in simpler terms if need be. Nobody wants to be condescended to.
posted by boghead at 9:02 AM on January 17, 2011


You're also going to run into a problem where what you think are two separate sounds are not considered such by the people you are speaking with. My old boss, a native Bengali speaker, did not differentiate between "J" and "Z" and couldn't pronounce the latter. She knew who people were speaking about when we mentioned "Zack" but always said "Jack."

I'm not sure what this illustrates, exactly, but it might help.
posted by griphus at 9:04 AM on January 17, 2011


You may be interested in Special English, used by the VoA. Their word book is online; they also simplify sentence structure.

I cannot attest to how people feel about Special English, but it seems to have been fairly successful for the VoA.
posted by aramaic at 9:11 AM on January 17, 2011


I say, speak correctly but simply. Don't toss around your $5 words, be mindful of when you're using idioms, and keep sentences short. I say this as a native English speaker who has worked with a lot of non-native English speakers - mostly labmates, college students, and museum visitors and volunteers. I didn't have to teach these people English, I just had to communicate with them. I think a lot of it is just paying attention to the person you're speaking to, and clarifying when clarification is necessary.

An older Dutch guy I met on vacation told me I "speak very good English," which was a great relief to me since it's the only language I speak fluently. I think what he was saying, though, was that I was speaking in a way that was easy for him to understand.
posted by mskyle at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2011


Many non-native speakers of English understand more than they are able speak so if you automatically dumb-down your language you could be insulting their intelligence.
Seconding this. I can quite happily sit and watch the news in a foreign language and get 95% of what's being said first time round, but I couldn't just up and tell the news myself at that speed with that fluency.
posted by dougrayrankin at 9:49 AM on January 17, 2011


I did an exchange in Brazil where I both talked with people with limited English, and tried to learn Portuguese, so I had this problem from both sides -- when I was trying to talk to them in English and when they were trying to talk to me in Portuguese.

Clearly enunciate every word in your sentence, so it's obvious where individual words start and stop.
Clearly pause at the end of sentences to give the other person a moment to realize that the sentence has ended and to parse what you've just said before moving on.

Those two things, more than anything else, helped me understand people.

Other advice:

Avoid idioms.
Avoid sarcasm (really, really avoid sarcasm).
Avoid sub-clauses.

would I be better off speaking in technically correct sentences or simplifying my speech similarly?

The answer to this is kind of 'yes to both'. Continue to speak in technically correct sentences, but simplify them as much as possible.

Here's a sentence you might say in English: "On my way to the store yesterday, I stopped in at Joe's and we chatted about the weather."

Here's the rough equivalent of how a Portuguese speaker learning English might have said it: "I go to the store yesterday. I go to the house of Joe before the store. We talk about the weather." It wasn't correct (and there's a good chance I'd have used the wrong 'of' in 'house of Joe', but I can't think of an equivalently wrong English construction) but it got the point across.

Here's the way I'd have tried to say the same thing to a Brazilian whose English wasn't great. "Yesterday, I went to the store. First, I went to Joe's house. We talked about the weather." It's all technically correct English, the verbs are correctly conjugated. But because it's simplified and broken down into multiple sentences, it gives more room for people to parse it correctly.

When I was saying the portuguese equivalent of 'I go to store yesterday', I was never under the delusion that it was 'correct', and while I might not have fully grokked the difference between 'I go to store yesterday' and 'I went to the store yesterday', I would have understood either of them as meaning the same thing.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2011 [5 favorites]


be mindful of when you're using idioms

This can't be over-stressed enough. A huge point of confusion when trying to communicate cross-languages. I think you'll find that you won't need to "dumb down" nearly as much if you get rid of those.

Most people who are not very English-fluent were taught functional English. "Please pass the salt, where is the library, may I purchase five dollars of your finest spices, where is the bathroom" kind of stuff. That is 90% of communication. Avoid grabbing the bull by the horns, draining the trouser snake, kicking a dead horse and wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Other types of idioms are the begging the question or implying the question. You might say "wow, I am tired" to a native speaker and they will understand that you are trying to get them to ask you why. A non native speaker might not pick up on the tone and just think you are making a statement. Or, things like "Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you, but I forgot my toothbrush." If the person hearing this isn't fluent enough to grok your tone, they may not understand that you are asking them for a loaner toothbrush.

And sarcasm. Avoid it like the plague.

Tenses can be trouble, spell the progression of events out more literally. "When you were in the back office, did you check whether the timer had been set?" That's a lot of zig zagging through time. "Is the egg timer set correctly?" gets the job done.
posted by gjc at 10:11 AM on January 17, 2011 [2 favorites]


I get the feeling that the country you're talking about is Singapore. In that case, it would be helpful to think of English and Singlish as two distinct languages and modes of conversing. If you cannot imitate Singlish (with its capricious, not non-existent, rules regarding plurals, tenses and parts of speech), you're better off sticking with proper English, "correctly but simply" as mskyle said. Simplify your vocabulary but use correct grammar. Language is tied intricately to culture, and improperly trying to imitate a certain culture's style of "broken" English could easily come across as condescending and end up alienating the people you are trying to communicate with.

On the other hand, (Singapore-specific advice) Singaporeans generally don't take language very seriously and asking to be taught Singlish will endear you greatly to most locals, bridging the gap that is inevitably created by your speaking a different mode of English - even if you don't get it right.

Of course, I could be way off base, but I hope my advice was of some use anyway!
posted by Xianny at 11:05 AM on January 17, 2011 [3 favorites]


Simple declarative sentences is the ticket. When listening to Germans speak I've noticed the ones I like best are the ones who appreciate the limitations of my abilities and trim their language accordingly. Not dumbing it down, just leaving out all the filigree.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:42 AM on January 17, 2011


Say it correctly first, then simplify for clarity. You reinforce and perpetuate a cycle that will be hard to break for the party listening to you otherwise.

It sounds like you're speaking a particular dialect, or even pidgin. It's not your job to correct other people's English (because their English is already correct, at least to them).

It's your job to communicate. Just simplify your speech.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:28 PM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]


Just to underline, as mentioned above, no sarcasm. No idioms. No slang. Other than that, speak slowly and clearly. Don't mumble, but at the same time, don't raise your voice. Speak in a normal tone. Be ready to simplify if you need to, but you can speak grammatically correct English in very, very simple terms. As From Bklyn mentions, you don't need to talk down to people, just speak simply.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:18 PM on January 17, 2011


Response by poster: I get the feeling that the country you're talking about is Singapore.

Can lah!

I mean, yes. Singapore :-P.

The consensus is then I should use small words from a limited vocabulary but in correct grammatical structure. That sounds reasonable.
posted by m1ndsurfer at 5:02 AM on January 19, 2011


The advice to avoid idioms like "grab the bull by the horns" or "beat around the bush" or "drive someone up the wall" is very good. Less obvious, but equally confusing to non-native speakers of English, are idiomatic phrasal verbs, things like
  • "give up" as in, stop trying: has nothing to do with either giving anyone anything or the direction "up"
  • "tell [two things] apart" as in, distinguish between two things: has nothing do with telling anyone anything
  • "fall for" as in, believe something untrue or become attracted to: has nothing to do with the physical act of falling
  • "catch on" as in, begin to understand: has nothing to do with the physical act of catching something
More here.

These are common in informal English speech, and it's hard to cut them out entirely. However, if you become more aware of them you could re-phrase as necessary.

Good luck! And have something yummy at a hawker stand for me...laksa maybe? Oh man, I'm drooling.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:06 AM on January 21, 2011


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