Reader el brought me a link that reminded me of what teaching English to Russian-speakers was like.
English sounds way too expressive and emotional to Russian-speakers who are notorious for their flat intonations and their inward-looking emotional range. I remember how my Mom always seethed whenever she heard my Dad speak English on the phone back in Ukraine.
“Why does he have to become this way? Nobody will take him seriously if he speaks like a clown!” she’d worry. I tried explaining that he had to sound “like a clown” to a Russian-speaker’s ear in order to be understood by an Anglo but she was not persuaded.
“You are trying to tell me that everybody in America does these weird things with their faces when they speak?” she’d ask. “That’s ridiculous.”
By the way, after sixteen years in Canada, my mother still doesn’t speak any but the most basic English.
When I started teaching English to Ukrainians, I had to tell them things like, “Imagine that you are a little kid. Open your mouth wide, make faces at me, make your voice do a sing-song. Try to be as goofy as you can.”
My students were adults and they didn’t appreciate these suggestions.
I also tried teaching my (first) husband to speak the language but every attempt ended with a fight.
“Why do you have to act so fake?” he’d ask. “You become this over-the-top, completely fake person whenever you speak English.”
Learning a language is easy. The very first thing you need to do is become a completely different person.
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