While it may come as a surprise to many, it’s true—those learning English in a multilingual household will have a better grasp of vocabulary, elocution, projection, and oftentimes, depending on the other languages spoken in the home, even better pronunciation in English.
But why is this? There are several reasons. To begin, many who come to the US trying to learn English are not learning it as a second language, but as a third, fourth, or even fifth language. Because non-natives or immigrants to the US speak other languages outside of their mother tongue, they have some advantages. Learning how to learn is a big one—if you’ve already mastered one language aside from your first one, the third language and all other subsequent languages become easier to learn because you’ve mastered the way to learn new languages, not just new languages on their own.
In addition, many “like” languages help each other out. In other words, if you already know Spanish, it’s much easier to learn Italian, and if you know both of those, many aspects of the English language rooted in Latin are very easy to understand because the mind draws parallels between the two.
But it doesn’t end there, physiologically or geographically. For example, because the Moors invaded Spain and ruled the nation for nearly 800 years, thousands of Arabic words are embedded in Spanish and Portuguese. That means that a person from an Arabic-speaking background or a Spanish-speaking background may very easily comprehend aspects of both languages with ease, which may seem counterintuitive to those who don’t know this part of history. The word for “cat” in Spanish is “gato” and in Arabic is “gatu”—the difference of one letter makes this a very easy new word to learn. Now take this and apply it to someone who, say, speaks Spanish and Arabic and is now learning English. The word “cat” may not seem that similar, but the phonetic sounds are extremely similar, and offer the brain a great basis for comparison, therefore making the word much easier to understand and remember.
And then there’s other reasons. For example, many Mexican immigrants to the US previously lived in parts of Mexico where a great deal of “proper” Spanish has been mixed with words in English. This is the influence of proximity, but also because many modern conveniences were first named in English before becoming popular in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. For example, the word “Internet” could be translated into Spanish, but it would be an entire sentence, something like “manera de conectar con el mundo via electricidad con computadora.” Instead of making a new word—or sentence—for the word “Internet,” Spanish-speaking communities simply decided to adopt the word into their language, albeit with Spanish pronunciation.
So the lesson here is this: for those who are fearful that learning how to speak or pronounce English will be difficult, it doesn’t have to be. If you are able to think of your first language as an asset rather than a hindrance, learning English and becoming a fluent English speaker, reader, and writer won’t be as hard as you may have made it up to be in your mind.
With that said, help is always of the utmost importance. Without the direction of an American English pronunciation and fluency coach, the journey to English fluency will be a longer one. So get started today with a free trial from PronunciationPro.com, and remember, what you’ve already learned is an asset, not a disadvantage!
