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Half the problems faced by a nonnative speaker of a language are about how hard the native speaker listening to them leans on their internalized expectations. The fun part of this is that little kids are, effectively, nonnative speakers until a certain age. Example:Permalink On twitter.com
Mood +4 🙂
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My son said something about Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'd have sworn he said they "can pee in a pipe." Turned out he was saying, "be in a pipe"—meaning, travel comfortably in sewer pipes. This use of "be" clashed with me normal English-listening templates.On twitter.com
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It took a few repetitions for me to get this, though: I had to unhear "pee" and realize there was some other verb he was using, and I couldn't hear "be" till I unheard the more logical (if bizarre) "pee."Permalink On twitter.com
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This idea of listening templates—my term—is funny and striking. We have whole matrices in our heads that sort for expected usages, and are especially tight for typical usages. The net is loose enough for creativity & innovation, but tight enough to allow on-the-fly listening.Permalink On twitter.com
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But when someone starts using language less than fluently, it starts to fumble. The funny thing is: there are typical error sets within one or another second/foreign language learner population: common errors to speakers with this or that first language.Permalink On twitter.com
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Language teachers abroad learn to parse the common (and less common but still semi-standard) errors for the group among whom they're immersed, when one dominant group exists. It strikes me this is something people do, but software probably doesn't do... yet.Permalink On twitter.com
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(It doesn't do this because there aren't established corpuses for the speech or writing patterns of nonnative speakers. They may never be needed if machine translation advances quickly enough, but as a tool for machine-aided self-instruction, this seems like a useful tech.)Permalink On twitter.com
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FWIW my son doesn't know about TMNT cartoons yet: he just has a few treasured early reader storybooks picked up during bulk book sales at a local used bookstore. He refers to Splinter as "The Mouse Sunsaengnim" (which is close enough to what Splinter is: a mutant Rat Sensei).Permalink On twitter.com