Influence of national languages on learning English

Abstract

Every language can be described in terms of a set of phonemes, including, in part, vowels, diphthongs, semivowels, and consonants. In China, Mandarin is the standard spoken Chinese, i.e., the national language. There are many additional dialects, each with its own set of phonemes. Fluent speakers in Mandarin and another dialect can therefore pronounce two sets of phonemes. The phonemes are produced mainly by operations of the vocal tract. The connections between vocal tract movements and phonemes are established in childhood, first for the dialect and then for Mandarin. This led us to compare the ability to learn to speak English among Chinese speakers using different dialects and therefore different sets of phonemes. It was observed that the greater the similarity of the dialect to English, the more intelligible and natural were the initial attempts to speak English. This was in spite of similar fluency in the national language, Mandarin. It was concluded that early learning of English was important, independent of the national language, and it was hypothesized that similar results would be obtained in other non‐English‐speaking countries.