[Hindi]. In today's lesson we are going to be looking at difficulties that speakers of...
From South Asia learning English may have. Now, English is a language that has been long
established in South Asia due to our history and our connection with India, and in South
Asia a variety of English has developed that is slightly different to traditional British
English. Now, I'm not saying that South Asian English is worse than British English, I'm
just pointing out that there are some differences, grammatically and in terms of pronunciation,
so this video is primarily aimed at helping you to be understood by native English speaker.
A native of the United Kingdom.
So, let's start off with looking at vowels. There are certain times when a native Indian
or Pakistani or Sri Lankan speaker will insert a vowel when there doesn't need to be one.
For example, in front of "s" words, there may be an "i" placed involuntary, without
their meaning to. "This istreet". Okay? We don't need a sound before the street, it's
just: "The street". [Hindi]. "Station", we don't need a sound before that. It's not:
"Istation", "This istation", no. Just: "This station" will do fine.
We don't need to insert extra vowels where they do not need to be there within words.
For example: "This is a faree lift", rather than: "This is a free lift", "a free lift"
meaning not having to pay. "This is a fantastic filam". Whoopsy, placed that in the wrong
place. "This is a fantastic film", "film", okay? I put "Bollywood" up here as well. I'm
a huge fan of Bollywood films. What was my favourite one recently? Involved a girl from
the sort of Pakistani mountains and she was a dumb girl, she couldn't hear, and she got
lost and separated, and then she was reunited with her family. Fantastic film. [Hindi],
something like this. Anyway, I wanted to put Bollywood up here because increasingly in
the Bollywood film industry, English words are being used, and Henglish... Okay? A variety
of Hindi and English is used. Just thought that was worth mentioning.
Now, the traditional English months of the year have been adopted by South Asian English,
and they are pronounced in a different way. So I just want to drill... Drill you on how
we would pronounce them here in the UK. So, maybe you could repeat after me. "January",
"January", "Jan-ur", so we don't go for the extra vowel sound, there. Just: "January".
"February", "February". We ignore those letters, there. "February". "March", "March". "April",
"May", "June", "July", "August", "August", "September", "September", "October", "November", "December".
And then a couple of words that have slightly different meanings. These are just two examples
from... I'm sure there are many. Now, in India, "a hotel" can be not just in India, in the
wider subcontinent can be used to mean a hotel, a caf�, and a restaurant, whereas here in
the UK a hotel is simply a place where you pay to have a room to sleep in. Also, I have
been invited before in India to visit someone's "backside", what they meant was their back
garden. If you said that here in the United Kingdom, they would be confused. Yes.
Intonation, this is quite a major area to work on. So, this sentence here, the meaning
changes according to where I put the emphasis. Just showing off my Hindi, so this means "chappalay",
"chappalay". So, let's experiment with the stress in different places. First off with
"I": "I did not say you stole my red slippers." So if I put the stress there it's saying:
It wasn't me that said you stole the red slippers. Stress here: "I did not say you stole my red
slippers." If you put the emphasis on "did", then it shows a degree of anger that you think
the person said that. "I did not say you stole my red slippers." Again, there's a heavy disagreement
with the other person. Have it on "say": "I did not say you stole my red slippers." So,
we're starting to think: Okay, we didn't say that you stole my red slippers, but maybe
you suggested that. "I did not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe someone else did.
"I did not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe you just walked off with them. "I did
not say you stole my red slippers." Maybe they weren't mine at all. "I did not say you
stole my red slippers", because my red slippers are very special. Okay? "I did not say you
stole my red slippers. I did not say you stole my red slippers." Okay? I'm putting the emphasis
on "slippers", and I'm thinking: "Okay, what is it with these slippers?" Okay? So, just
something to think about, where we are putting the stress. Now, obviously in Hindi, Urdu,
nouns have a masculine and feminine form, and the adjectives change according to the
noun they are placed with. [Hindi]. We don't have genders of nouns in the UK. So, just
bear that in mind. In Hindi the verb goes at the end of the sentence, it doesn't in
British English. It normally goes: Subject, verb, object. There's quite a lot of discrepancies,
quite a lot of differences with prepositions. I've covered this in quite a lot of detail
in my video for Polish learners, so maybe that's a video that you could be checking
out as well.
The comparative and superlative, so this is something that a native of the... Of South
Asia may say. "This girl is calmer from the boy." What I need to say is: "...than the
boy. This girl is calmer than the boy." We're comparing girl to the boy, the girl is calmer.
"He is the most bravest boy in the team. He is the most bravest." If I have "est" here,
I don't need "most". "He is the bravest boy on the team."
"More", "very", and "too". Again, I also have a separate lesson on "very" and "too", so
that's, again, another video that you could be revising. I have noticed that this is...
People get a little bit confused here. "Try to score more than 9 out of 10 in the quiz
after this video. Try to score more", so you're trying to get more than. "You have tried very
hard." I'm just modelling correct usages of these words, here. "You have tried very hard.",
"This curry is too spicy." Okay? "too" and then the adjective. "You have tried very hard."
Okay? So the adverb coming after the verb. "Try to score more than".
I hope this has been of some use. This is not a total exhaustive list; it's just a couple
of things that I have noticed, and there are, as I said at the beginning of the lesson,
some beautiful speakers, beautiful... I don't mean beautiful. I mean incredibly effective
speakers of English in the Indian subcontinent, and in terms of literature there've been some
fantastic books written in English by people from South Asia, one which I'm enjoying at
the moment called The Glass Palace. Anyway, until next time, [Hindi].