The verbal road to fitting in to society

From the Orange County Register – October 22, 2001
By Anh Do

There they sat, in midsentence. The teacher said: "Roll out the word. Eeeaaatt. Not it. Llleeeaave. Not live.

"I hope you won't leave. I will eat it later.

"You don't want the listener to hear: 'I hope you won't live.' Say it properly. People need to know what you're talking about."

Five sets of mouths move in unison.

I lean back, amazed. Here they were, adults with jobs, mortgages, kids, struggling over grade-school pronunciation. The men and women, not brand-new immigrants to this country, still wanted to shed their accents. So on a gorgeous Saturday they file into Seija Tafoya's class, created for Vietnamese speakers, to learn how.

They tell their teacher they are motivated by one thing - fitting in. At work when they make a presentation, they dread being greeted by raised eyebrows, loss of status or loss of attention. Their goal is respect.

Still, it is a bit disturbing that acceptance in our society is often based on the shade of your skin or on your accent. But that's how it goes. How you speak influences how you are treated.

If it takes time to have yourself understood, people turn away. If they have to pause and decipher your thoughts, they'd rather not bother. This happens all the time.

I've seen it with my own family when trying to schedule an appointment with a doctor or a Realtor. Brokers tell them: "You must be a newcomer. How can you understand the complex process of buying a house?"

Medical receptionists interrupt them, asking: "Is there someone else who could call us to explain your illness or your insurance? I'm too busy to listen to what you're saying."

I've seen churchgoers leave early when Vietnamese priests sermonize.

Some native speakers simply don't have the patience to deal with non-native speakers. It's annoying, but the reality is we have no control over others' reactions.

Tafoya, a linguist whose five-week course, costing $150, is taught at UCI Extension, agrees.

"Some individuals are ignorant about how difficult a foreign language is. They have no clue about how much work it is to lessen or shake an accent. Sometimes when they hear something they can't comprehend, they think: 'Are you stupid or something? How can you make pronunciation mistakes?' "

Tafoya is actually Finnish. Fluency in other languages such as Swedish and German helped her grasp English and she now thrives on teaching Southeast Asians.

"I can laugh at them because I've been there," she adds, her rich chuckle filling up the room, where a blackboard shows an assortment of phonetics and phrases. "The Vietnamese, they are crazy. They have survived so much so it's easy, too, for them to laugh at themselves."

She challenges her charges, blending wit with example. In Vietnamese, for example, all words just have one syllable and they don't end in the letters "S, L, R, F, V" or "Z."

But Tafoya urges them: "Train your mind to say the S's, as in 'this sound is difficult, sound, not sow. That's a mama pig.

"Americans don't say 'tanks.' To show gratitude, we say 'thanks.'

"T, T, T," she continued. "I need to make a tape, not tep. I will go to the lake, not leg. Stretch when you have to. Hiss. Bring a mirror and watch your tongue, your lips."

Nodding, students Lan Tran and Donald Tran say they hope to improve.

Lan Tran, a supervisor at a computer firm in Irvine, intends to communicate with her employees effectively. She has lived 11 years in Orange County, after a stint in Montreal, prompting her instructor to say: "Why, you sound just like Peter Jennings," a fellow Canadian.

The woman giggles, then returns to her lessons. Near her, Donald Tran reflects.

"Communication is No. 1," said Tran, of Laguna Niguel, an Internet entrepreneur who is raising revenue for a new Web site. "People look down at you if you can't say a thing correctly. We live here now, so we must adapt. I realize that if I want to sell myself, I have to be able to talk right."