Re: Running out of breath

From: Carl Taylor (carltaylor_at_att.net)
Date: 03/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 01:12:10 GMT

Pekka Karjalainen wrote:
> My first language is Finnish. I learned English pretty early as L2,
> but didn't pay much attention to speaking it until somewhat later.
>
> I've noticed that I have a tendency to run out of breath mid-sentence
> more often in English than in Finnish when reading aloud. In fact, it
> hardly ever happens when reading Finnish texts. I don't normally read
> aloud that much, but I like to occasionally do so (if people will
> listen).
>
> Several reasons occur to me. English could be "more breathy" because
> it has more fricatives and aspirated stops. Still, the sentences and
> their subunits you find in a typical text should not be a problem for
> native speakers, so I think my occasional lack of breath comes from
> trying too hard to get the English sounds right - too much emphasis
> maybe. It also could be that I have poorer feeling for where to
> pause, and try to get too much out on one go.
>
> That's not really the issue here. I could practice it more and maybe
> get better. I wanted to ask whether other people ever feel like this.
>
> So, does anyone else find a difference like this between two languages
> they know? If so, what, how, why?

Funny you should bring this up -- I have exactly the same problem when I
read Finnish aloud, (seriously)! I just figure it's mostly due to the fact
that my knowledge of your native language is purely passive and limited to
the written standard. I really have neither an ingrained feel for the
prosody of the language nor much active experience in speaking and
listening.

One thing though, is the heavy use of compounding in Finnish. Just coping
with the word length plus being on the lookout for the morpheme boundries to
discern the meaning of the whole compound is like driving over speed bumps,
[hidastustöyssyjä -- note the change in vowel harmony from back to front in
this two element compound]. Then for an English speaker there's the matter
of the geminate consonants. Taking the necessary care to get the -pp-, -tt-,
and -kk- sequences, (among others), correct requires an unnatural effort.
And of course the front rounded vowels, and the fact that short and long
vowels must be clearly distinguished takes more energy. Oh, and then there's
the sandhi effect over certain word boundries to watch out for, i.e.
"loppukahdennus". And let's not forget to always give primary stress to the
first syllable of every word or every element of a compond word. Sometimes
too the mental reverse engineering required to figure out the basic form of
a word that has undergone an especially arcane consonant gradation takes its
toll, e.g. (okaalla -> oas). Jeez, no wonder I run out of breath!

So why *do* you run out of breath when reading English aloud? Short words,
lazy indeterminate vowels, no significant amount of inflection to decode, no
phonemic length distintion for either vowels or consonants, variable word
stress to help you relax, sloppy aspirated stops -- no need to tighten up
the facial muscles, and as if that's not enough, we even put a space between
the elements of many compound words to ease eye strain.

But seriously, you mention "trying too hard to get the sounds right". I
think there could be something to that. I used to be criticized a lot for
"over pronouncing" French and German when working and traveling in Europe.
One of my French teachers once told me to relax and be more natural. "You're
not Professor Higgins talking to Eliza Doolittle.", he said.

Carl Taylor

 

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