Book recommendation: David Crystal's Spell it out

Just a quick message to anybody reading this blog. If you have been wondering about the apparently impossible spelling of words in English, this is THE BOOK.

Spell it out by David Crystal. David Crystal is a famous linguist and lexicographer (i.e. he makes dictionaries) and his book on spelling is very informative because he explains in detail how English spelling resulted the way it did.

I always give some general ideas about that process when my students ask me, but if you want to know more, here's the book you should be reading over Christmas!

And in case you were wondering you can find it on amazon, on ibooks, and even on Mr. Crystal's website.

Prepositions: ON vs. OFF (Obama vs. Taylor Swift)

The meaning of prepositions often puzzles learners of English. However, it is one of the things I like about english grammar. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that prepositions in English, compared with Spanish, are wonderful.

Why? Because they make sense. Prepositions in Spanish often have a vague meaning or they are too flexible. However in English they have coherent meanings that are rarely contradicted. To put it in rules:

a) A preposition in English always (every rule has its exceptions) has the same meaning.
b) that basic meaning can be elaborated on, but it will remain basically the same.
c) as a consequence with a little common sense, the meaning of prepositions can be predicted... and so can phrasal verbs.

So, what is the meaning of ON and OFF? These two prepositions which are clearly opposites, are often misunderstood by many students and approached incorrectly by too many teachers. Any possible meaning of on falls within the category of "in contact". Any possible meaning of off can be reduced to "no contact".

Both meanings have to be interpreted broadly. But the basic meaning remains. Let's take the expression "that's on me" which apparently makes no sense. Where is the contact here? The contact here is the connection  between the person who says that sentence and the payment to be made.

"That's on us, not on them."

Here, Obama is using it even more metaphorically: he is discussing Obamacare and its failings and he is taking the blame, as if it were the bill at a bar. So, he can still use "That's on us." Even here, on means contact, in the sense of belonging which is a type of connection.

Now to off. Recently american singer Taylor Swift provided us with a very good example of using "off" in a metaphorical way, actually a phrasal verb (phrasal verbs are more or less elaborated metaphores).

The name of the song is shake it off. If you think about it this phrasal verb is ingenious and straightforward at the same time: the message is to stop worrying about stupid problems which are really unimportant. This is something that happens a lot when you are a teenager. The idea of separation is there, separating from those problems. This is a metaphorical turn on the original use of shake off, which is what you do with snow, dirt, dust, etc... when they accumulate on your clothes.

A good exercise would be to take any sentence you can think of that includes on or off and figure out how these prepositions retain the original meanings. If you can't figure it out, you are welcome to post it as a comment!

Spanish actors and their English pronunciation

Spanish people have a reputation abroad for speaking languages terribly. They are not alone in that, and there are even worse examples, but that's the reputation. What about spanish artists, like actors or singers. In the case of actors, the reference is Hollywood, of course, and to enter Hollywood as an equal, you have to be accepted and that is hard work. Fame costs!

Now, in the last few years, things have changed for the better. Now I am going to focus on three different stages of that process. The interesting thing is these three people know each other very well: Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The reason I have chosen them is because they exemplify three very clear stages of pronunciation development in foreign learners of English. First, Mr. Banderas:

In this interview you can notice that his English is very fluent, he has no problem getting his message across and he understands the journalist very well. However if you look at his acting career, he seems to be doomed to playing the latino character in every film. Why is that? Because the way he sounds is completely foreign. He is pronouncing English with the minimum changes necessary to become just understandable. His vowel sounds, most of his consonants and most suprasegmental features (the things that happen over more than one sound) are brought in from the spanish language. And that's his glass ceiling. Which both Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem have broken for themselves.

My second example is Penélope Cruz. Both her and Javier Bardem have learnt from people like Antonio Banderas who came first, so they have improved a lot their learning process. Merciless immersion brought Antonio only so far. They needed to get a little more professional about it and has been using a voice coach for years. Her progress from virtually speaking no English is praiseworthy. Let's listen to her:

She has gone beyond Antonio Banderas in one significant feature: consonant sounds. Her pronunciation in that sense goes away from Spanish, incorporating many sounds which would not be there in Spanish. However she has two areas to work on: her vowels, which continue to be spanish throughout and the overall impression (what is technically known as suprasegmental features) which still sounds too foreign. Which the audience loves, apparently both in her and in Antonio Banderas.

Finally, we get to Javier Bardem, the best pupil of the three. If my sources (google) are correct, his coach for "No country for old men" was Howard Samuelsohn. Let's hear how he spoke after Vicky Cristina Barcelona:

We can very easily this is a different level, and it is higher: vowels may not be perfect, but they definitely sound much more english, consonants are mostly correct and he has a good grasp of intonation and conversational cues. You still notice he is a foreigner, but an accomplished one.

All this goes to show that for all the talk about how natural, sink-or-swim immersion, to achieve fine-grain advanced quality, coaching  and hard work are definitely needed. The videos I have used are deliberately not recent. So I expect the three of them have continued to improve. Keep the good work!