Has the PM been taking lessons?
One of my neighbours is a retired English teacher, a crotchety old American who has far too much time on his hands.
Like some English teachers, he tends to be excessively critical of the grammar, usage and pronunciation of others. He calls himself Mr A.
Mr A has undertaken to evaluate the spoken English of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra solely on the basis of two speech events he has watched on television: her famous “owercome” [sic] speech welcoming Hillary Clinton to Thailand, and her more recent interview by Paula Hancocks on CNN’s “Talk Asia” programme. At my request, he presented me with a written analysis, the same kind he used to give his students. Thinking that your readers might find it of minor interest, I quote it below with his permission:
“Ms Yingluck’s skills in spoken English are about average for a university student at the intermediate level. Like most Thai students, her main problem is pronunciation. She cannot pronounce the letter V, confuses R and L, clips off final consonants, and cannot manage consonant clusters. These problems are common in Thailand. They are not serious, but they do interfere with communication. When Ms Yingluck referred to Thailand as a “foo-fed democracy” and to the US as a “stragic partner” in her welcoming speech to Mrs Clinton, it took some mental gymnastics to translate these expressions into “full-fledged democracy” and “strategic partner”. Her statement that “de dam orready foo” and her expression of sympathy for “de painfoo of de peepole” in the Hancocks interview were somewhat easier to interpret.
“I would not blame Ms Yingluck personally for these problems. They should have been corrected at the beginning of her academic career. Pronunciation habits, once established, are extremely difficult to change.
Thai teachers of English themselves often have pronunciation problems that they unwittingly pass on to their students. The students sometimes have no idea that they have a problem until they encounter their first foreign teacher.”
Mr A added that he thought he detected some improvement in the Hancocks interview, which suggests that Ms Yingluck has been learning, even under conditions of enormous pressure. For that, he concluded, she deserves high praise.
In evaluating Mr A’s assessment, readers should bear in mind that he is something of a pronunciation Nazi. There is also the question of what the A stands for.
Constance Beasley
Bangkok
