{"id":271,"date":"2012-11-23T06:19:43","date_gmt":"2012-11-23T05:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=271"},"modified":"2017-06-20T19:48:56","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T17:48:56","slug":"teaching-english-to-italians-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/teaching-english-to-italians-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few More Thoughts on Teaching English to Italians"},"content":{"rendered":"
In the spirit of fair play, I will eventually invite an Italian teacher to my blog so that she can make fun of all us Americans who are trying to master the language of Dante.\u00a0 Every population has its unique challenges when learning a foreign language.\u00a0 Perhaps we Americans are the most tongue-tied of all, living in a country that is more or less linguistically isolated and culturally\u00a0homogeneous.\u00a0 What we sometimes refer to as \u201cdialects\u201d in the U.S. are really not much more than minor regional accents, and even these have very little variation relative to the size of our country.\u00a0 Especially when compared to Italians, we all speak the exact same language in the United States.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n When we learn our first language, not only do we acquire vocabulary and grammar rules, but we also train our lips, tongue, teeth, and palate to produce the sounds that are necessary and often unique to that language.\u00a0 As many of you might have already discovered, there are sounds present in the Italian language that we Americans have a difficult time producing (for example, the rolling \u201cr\u201d comes to mind).\u00a0 Likewise there are many sounds in English that Italians simply can\u2019t produce because these sounds do not exist in their mother tongue.\u00a0 See my earlier blog post on this topic here: https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/teaching-english-to-italians\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Furthermore, it\u2019s difficult to convince an Italian that the same letter can be pronounced in a variety of different ways depending on\u2026well, often depending on no exact rule, really. \u00a0In Italian, the rules for pronunciation are very precise with few, if any, exceptions.\u00a0 Not so in English.\u00a0 For example: in English, when we say the word \u201cidiot\u201d and the word \u201cidea,\u201d the \u201ci<\/strong>\u201d is pronounced in two different ways.\u00a0 It just so happens that these two words are almost identical when translated into Italian: \u201cidiota<\/em>\u201d and \u201cidea<\/em>,\u201d where the \u201ci<\/strong>\u201d always sounds like a long \u201ce<\/strong>\u201d in English (as in the word \u201ce<\/span><\/strong>mail\u201d). \u00a0I’ve\u00a0seen an Italian woman who taught English at a public school in Italy invent an explanation for this phenomenon for her students.\u00a0 She said, \u201cRagazzi<\/em>, the \u2018i<\/strong>\u2019<\/em> sounds differently depending on where the accent falls: in idiot<\/em> the accent is on the \u2018i<\/strong>\u2019<\/em> itself, whereas for idea<\/em> it\u2019s on the \u2018e<\/strong>\u2019<\/em> that follows.\u201d Ha! Imagine her confusion when a student promptly asked her to explain the difference between \u201cidle\u201d and \u201cidol.\u201d<\/p>\n If vowel sounds present some lingering questions, then groups of letters only worsen the situation for the Italian beginner. \u00a0Above all, the double consonants. \u00a0For the Italians it will always remain a mystery why Americans waste paper and ink by writing double consonants that have only one sound. \u00a0Now, this is a difficult concept for us English speakers to understand. \u00a0For example, you might know that \u201cpane<\/em>\u201d is the Italian word for \u201cbread.\u201d\u00a0 But if you hear an Italian exclaim that he\u2019s in \u201cpanne<\/em>,\u201d you might think that he\u2019s eating too much and needs to go on a diet.\u00a0 But in fact, when pronounced, \u201cpan-ne,\u201d it means that he\u2019s having some serious trouble at the moment.\u00a0 There are many more examples of this, some of which can be quite embarrassing.\u00a0 Try looking up the difference between \u201canno<\/em>\u201d and \u201cano<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Preferably before<\/span> you ask someone how old they are.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps this phenomenon might start to make sense when you consider it from the other point of view.\u00a0 When an American says the word \u201cbutter,\u201d it sounds like \u201cbuder.\u201d\u00a0 Then listen to an Italian pronounce words like \u201cbutter,\u201d or \u201chappy,\u201d or \u201csunny.\u201d\u00a0 They pronounce both of the double consonants distinctly in every case.\u00a0 It can be very \u201cfun-ny\u201d to listen to, but you have to admit that they have a point.<\/p>\nTeaching English to Italians<\/h2>\n