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Fluency, only through idea units
You want to achieve a high level of
fluency in spoken English. And this is only possible if you’re
aware of certain fundamental things. So let’s start off with
them.
‘Speech’ comes first, and ‘writing’,
only next
You know, the first thing you should
understand about a language is this: A language has two sides,
like a coin. Yes, two sides. A ‘spoken’ side and a ‘written’
side.
Listen. Doesn’t a child learn to speak long
before it sees writing? Hadn’t people been speaking, long
before writing came? So isn’t one thing clear — that the ‘spoken’
stage of a language comes before the ‘written’ stage?
Isn’t this also clear — that ‘speech’ and ‘writing’ are different
things, and aren’t to be looked at or learnt in the
same way?
This is true about any language. It’s true
about English, too.
Don’t you get one thing now? Don’t you see
why most non-native speakers of English find it hard to speak
fluent English?
Non-native speakers learn English
the ‘wrong’ way
By ‘non-native speakers of English’,
I mean people for whom English is not their first language
or mother-tongue, but a second language — or just a foreign
language. You see, for people in India, English is a foreign
language — but it’s also a second language. For people in
several other countries, English is simply a foreign language,
and not even a second language.
Most non-native speakers of English find
it hard to speak English fluently, because they can’t learn
English the way they learn their first language. You see,
they’re born and brought up in a country where English is
not spoken as the first language. And so they can only learn
English in the wrong way: In a way that is just the reverse
of the natural process of language acquisition. Haven’t we
seen just now what the natural way is? Haven’t we seen that
the natural way is to learn to speak first, and then only
to learn to write? But most non-native speakers of English
don’t have the opportunity of learning English in that way.
So you see, as a non-native speaker of English,
you’ve been learning English in the ‘non-natural’ way — in
a way that’s opposite to the natural way of language acquisition.
You’ve been learning to write English first, rather than to
speak it. That’s what you’ve been doing at school and college.
You’ve been learning to produce written English. And
the methods you had to follow never fully made you understand
this: The ‘spoken’ style is quite different from the ‘written’
style.
You see, the spoken word is the basis for
the written word, and not the other way round. And so spoken
English is more fundamental than written English. But the
non-natural way in which you had to learn English planted
the wrong notion in your mind: A wrong notion that things
are the other way round — that written English is more fundamental
than spoken English.
So the result is this: You’re now steeped
in written English. And your written English orientation has
been preventing you all along from understanding one thing.
It has been preventing you from understanding that spontaneous
speech has to be composed differently — that is, in a way
quite different from the way writing is produced. Result?
You always try to speak the way you write. And you do this
by trying hard to follow principles of grammar and usage as
applied to writing, and not as applied to speech itself.
Is there any wonder fluency has eluded you
so far?
So I want you to understand one thing here
and now: When they speak spontaneously, fluent speakers apply
principles of grammar and usage in a way that is different
from the way they apply those principles when they write.
And the spoken style has a number of devices and conventions
of its own, and these devices and conventions are not derived
from the written style.
Learning words alone won’t help
Now just think about this: Suppose you
learn a number of English words very well — say, a nice big
stock of them. Then, will you be able to speak English fluently?
I’m sure you know the answer. The answer is, you won’t. You
won’t be able to speak English fluently just because you’ve
mastered all the common words there are. If this hadn’t been
so, would speaking have been a problem? In fact, you may yourself
have an excellent vocabulary. Why, even a student who has
completed high school knows all the common words we use in
everyday spoken English! But, is every student who completes
high school able to speak fluent English? The truth is, even
most post-graduates aren’t able to speak English fluently
— even though they know all the English words commonly used
in speech!
Why is this so? Here’s a chief reason: People who aren’t fluent
try to speak in ‘words’, by trying to put individual words
together. They’re not aware that this is not the right
way of speaking English. The right way to speak English is
to speak it in “word groups”, by putting word groups together
— and to use individual words only when an individual word
can do the work of a word group. This is because the real
units of speech are ‘ideas’ (or ‘information’). And ideas
normally get expressed in groups of words, rather than in
individual words.
Bite-sized pieces of ideas
So the point you should understand is
this: Natural speech comes out in units or very short pieces
of ideas. And most often, these units of ideas are said and
heard in groups of words. Sometimes they’re said and heard
in individual words, too.
Let’s take a look at a few spoken texts,
so that you can get a clear idea of all this. Here we go:
• He unlocked the front door + and we went
in + and he said + I’ll be back in a minute + and he went
upstairs + so I remained in the hall + and then the phone
started ringing + and he shouted to me to answer it + and
I picked up the receiver + and I said ‘hello’ + but the
person at the other end suddenly hung up + so I replaced
the receiver.
• He passed the exam + with a very high
score + and he was thrilled + very pleased + and happy +
and he treated us to ice-cream + the very next day.
• They were close friends + and they had
similar opinions + and similar ideas + attitudes + and they’ve
worked together + on several projects.
• She gave him something to eat + something
soft and thick + sticky + a toffee-like thing.
• It’s a bit heavy + and so you can’t move
it easily + from place to place + but it doesn’t take up
much space + so you can put it in your bedroom + or in the
hall.
• Actually + I don’t like that idea + though
I can’t say anything against it + because I can’t give any
reasons + and I don’t know why I have this feeling + but
something in me tells me + that this idea may not work +
and it may even achieve the opposite result + from the one
we want to achieve + and that is not going to be a good
thing.
Go through these five examples. Three of
them contain one one-word idea unit each. Did you spot them
the first time you went through the examples. If you didn’t,
why don’t you try and spot them now?
How does natural speech come out?
When a child wants something, what does
it say? It says: “Give it to me”. Do you think the child first
learns the words ‘Give’, ‘it’, ‘to’, and ‘me’ separately,
and, then connects them together? When a child doesn’t want
a thing, it says: “I don’t want it”. When a child gets tired
of walking, and wants to be carried, it says: “Pick me up”.
Do you think the child first learns the words ‘I’, ‘don’t’,
‘want’, ‘it’, ‘pick’, ‘me’, and ‘up’ separately, and, then,
connects them also together?
For the child, “Give it to me” is the same
as a single word ‘givitumee’, and not four separate words.
“I don’t want it” is the same as a single word ‘Aidonwantit’,
and not four separate words. “Pick me up” is the same thing
as a single word ‘Pickmeeyup’, and not three separate words.
The child says each of these word groups as a single utterance
without any gap between any two words. It doesn’t make separate
utterances for each of the words in a word group. The child
says each word group as a single unit — as though it were
a single word.
This is what normally happens when a fluent
native speaker of English speaks English. And this is what
normally happens when a fluent native speaker of any other
language speaks that language. Think about what happens in
your own mother-tongue. Notice how you yourself speak in your
own mother-tongue.
What does natural speech come out
in?
From what I’ve said so far, don’t you
see one thing? Normally, natural speech doesn’t come out in
‘words’. It comes out in word groups.
Strictly speaking, natural speech comes out neither in single
words nor even in word-groups. Actually, it comes out in units
of ideas. Of course, most often, these units of ideas get
expressed through multi-word units (= word-groups) — and sometimes
in single words.
Now listen: What was the child doing when
it had said “Give it to me”? Wasn’t the child just giving
expression to a unit of “idea” or a “thought” or a piece of
“information”? The idea (or thought or information) came up
in its mind, and it just made an utterance — an utterance
that the child thought would express that idea (or thought
or information). This was so when it had said “I don’t want
it” and “Pick me up”, too.
Actually, this is always so. Children always
speak in their mother tongue by uttering idea by idea, and
not word by word. So do adults, and everyone who speaks their
mother-tongue fluently. When they speak spontaneously, do
fluent speakers consciously search through their brain for
word after word? No, normally, they don’t. Do they consciously
stop to think about how to string the words together? No,
normally they don’t. They just say what they have in mind
by using such vocabulary items as occur readily to them —
spontaneously and without any conscious effort. And normally,
the stretches of speech that come out happen to be in groups
of words.
But how do they get this skill? ...
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