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Kim V. Steier
Wilkes University

SPANISH AND ENGLISH
LANGUAGE COMPARISON
The Spanish Language

 Spanish is a Romance language, descended from
  Latin and belonging to the Indo-European
  language family (Grolier, 1991, p. 143).
  Historically, it has been spoken mainly in Spain
  and Latin America, but today is the first
  language of an increasing number of ELLs in the
  United States. This language comparison
  presentation examines the similarities and
  differences between Spanish and English from
  the perspective of explaining the types of
  language errors made by L1 Spanish speakers
  and the resulting instructional implications for
  ESL classroom settings.
The Spanish Alphabet

 The Spanish language is written using the
  Spanish alphabet, which is the addition of
  one letter, eñe (ñ), to the Latin alphabet.
  This difference in alphabets does not present
  a problem for native Spanish speakers
  learning English. While there are many
  similarities between the Spanish and English
  consonant systems, the differences between
  the vowel systems and sentence stress
  present significant difficulties for ELLs.
Coe (1987) defines the vowel
differences as follows:
 Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 diphthongs. The
  length of the vowel is not significant in
  distinguishing between words. This contrasts
  with English, which has 12 pure vowel sounds
  and 8 diphthongs. The length of the vowel sound
  plays an important role. It is not surprising,
  therefore, that Spanish learners may have great
  difficulty in producing or even perceiving the
  various English vowel sounds. Specific problems
  include the failure to distinguish the sounds in
  words such as ship/sheep, taught/tot,
  fool/full or cart/cat/cut (p. 91).
Consonant Sounds

 Although less problematic, there are some
  difficulties that L1 Spanish speakers may have
  with consonant sounds when learning English.
  These include: failure to pronounce the end
  consonant accurately or strongly enough,
  problems with the /v/ sound, difficulties in
  sufficiently distinguishing words such
  as see/she or jeep/sheep/cheap, the tendency to
  prefix words beginning with a consonant cluster
  on s- with an /ε/ sound, and the swallowing of
  sounds in other consonant clusters
  (next becomes nes and instead becomes istead).
  (Coe, 1987, p.95)
Intonation Patterns

 Spanish is considered a syllable-timed
  language. This results in Spanish speakers
  often transferring the intonation patterns of
  their mother tongue into English, which is a
  stress-timed language. The resulting speech
  may be barely comprehensible to native
  English speakers.
Spelling

 There is a strong correspondence between the
  sound of a word and its spelling in Spanish. The
  irregularity of English causes problems when
  Spanish learners write a word they first
  encounter in spoken language or say a word first
  introduced in written language. A specific
  problem concerns the spelling of English words
  with double letters. Spanish has only 3 double-
  letter combinations- cc, ll, rr. English, in
  comparison, has 5 times as many. Spanish
  learners often reduce English double letters to a
  single one, or overcompensate by doubling a
  letter unnecessarily. (Coe, 1987, p.99)
Grammatical Differences

 Numerous grammatical differences between the
  two languages result in other examples of
  negative transfer. For instance, a native Spanish
  speaker may say “I have 43 years,” because the
  verb used for expressing age in Spanish is
  translated to the English verb have. “The term
  transfer is used to describe the process whereby
  a feature or rule from a learner’s first language is
  carried over to the IL [interlanguage] grammar.”
  (O’Grady, 2010, p. 393). The easiest way to
  illustrate these interlanguage grammar
  challenges for ELLs is by looking at the data
  analysis journal of an L1 Spanish student.
Data Analysis
The data analysis         The student, Rafael Z., is a 43-
journal that follows
documents and
                           year-old native of Mexico City
analyzes written and       whose first language is
spoken language usage      Spanish. Rafael has been living
and errors made by an
adult English language
                           and working in the United
learner attending ESL      States for ten years. He began
classes at Vista Adult     taking ESL classes three years
School in Vista,
California.
                           ago, starting in the Low Pre-
                           literacy class (Level 1) and is
                           presently in the High-
                           Beginning class (Level 4).
Collection of Data

 A list of language errors has been compiled
  by utilizing writing samples obtained from
  Rafael’s classroom journal, notebook and
  other written assignments. Additional data
  was collected from recorded oral interviews
  that have been transcribed. These written
  and spoken errors have been categorized in
  the following chart, providing a visual means
  to assist in the detection of error patterns.
Category of Error        Student Samples

 Adjective-Noun Order    I like the food Chinese.
                          You like the food
                           Mexican?



 Auxiliary Verbs         I __ no(t) like the
  (missing)                hamburger.
                          __ You like drink the
                           coffee?
Category of Error              Student Samples
 Orthographical Errors         The childrens injoy legolan_
                                 the saturday.
                                I need speack more inglish.
                                School is tree hours.




 Sentence Structure/Awkward    Today is a day very hard for
  Word Order                     me.
                                I was all day Sunday at home.
Category of Error            Student Samples
 Subject-Verb Agreement      My uncle go to the
                               church.
                              My friend drink too
                               much.



                              My uncle is _ teacher in
 Use of Articles (omitted     the church.
  or inserted)
                              We go to the Walmart.
                              I go __ church the
                               Sundays.
Category of Error          Student Samples
 Use of Prepositions       I live on Vista ___ about
  (incorrect or omitted)     ten years.
                            The sons of my uncle go
                             __ the park for ride
                             bicycle.
                            My uncle is in home now.



                            I __ going now.
 Verb Tense
                            I eat fish yesterday.
                            I __ from Mexico.
Category of Error          Student Samples
 Word Usage (incorrect)    We drink a cup a beers
                             __ the weekend.
                            Too much peoples go
                             at the party.
                            I have 43 years.




                            My boss no pay me
 Miscellaneous
                             nothing one month.
Types of Error Patterns
         and Causes of Errors
 There are several patterns of errors made by Rafael
  that are common among English language learners
  with Spanish as their native language. Therefore, I
  believe that the majority of his errors can be
  attributed to language interference.

 In the first category (adjective-noun order), adjectives
  follow nouns in the Spanish language, hence we see
  the reversed order. Use of the auxiliary verb “do” is
  difficult to acquire because there is not an equivalent
  Spanish word used in forming questions nor in making
  negative statements.
Spelling errors                            Word order

 Many of Rafael’s                     Spanish syntax is generally
  orthographical errors are due         more flexible than English
  to substituting the Spanish           syntax, which often leads
  spelling for English vowel            English language learners to
  sounds, writing a word the            use awkward sentence
  way he pronounces it (“tree”          structures or word order,
  instead of “three”), following        even when they are
  L1 capitalization rules (days         otherwise grammatically
  of the week and languages             correct.
  are spelled in Spanish with
  the initial letter in lowercase),
  or by over generalizing newly
  learned spelling patterns
  (applying the ending “-ck”
  incorrectly in the word
  “speack”).
3rd Person                          Articles
 Another area of confusion         The use of articles in English
  concerns the third-person           can be very confusing for
  singular verb form. Spanish         Spanish speakers. For
  verb conjugation is the same        example, in English, one must
  for the subjects “you”, “he”,       say, “I am a teacher,” but the
  and “ she”, whereas in English      Spanish equivalent translates
  an –s must be added to the          literally as “I am teacher.” A
  ending for “he,” “she” and          student “thinking in Spanish”
  “it”.                               may incorrectly express “on
                                      Sundays” as “the Sundays”,
                                      and even when saying the
                                      specific name of a store
                                      (versus “the store”), the
                                      Spanish equivalent is “the
                                      Sears” or “the Walmart.”
Prepositions               “Apostrophe-s”

 Prepositions are very     The “apostrophe- s” is
  tricky as well,            not used at all in
  especially since the       Spanish, so it is
  Spanish preposition        common for native
  “en” can be translated     Spanish speakers to
  as “in” or “on”.           say “the (something) of
                             (someone)” to indicate
                             possession (“the sons
                             of my uncle” instead of
                             my uncle’s sons).
Verb and Miscellaneous Errors
                                 The verb “tener” (have) is
 Verbs that are irregular in     used to express age in
  the past tense are              Spanish, hence “I have 43
  problematic because they        years.” Rafael heard
  must be memorized. Even         someone say “a couple of
  though the present              beers” and wrote “a cup a
  continuous is formed the        beers.” He also incorrectly
  same way in English as in       made “people” plural, as
  Spanish, students such as       one might add an “s” to
  Rafael may tend to omit         change “person” to
  the verb “be” because they      “persons.” “Much” and
  often perceive “I’m going”      “many” is essentially
  as “I going.”                   interchangeable in
                                  Spanish, the Spanish word
                                  “a” can be translated as
                                  “to” or “at”, and the double
                                  negative is correct to use in
                                  Spanish grammar.
Language Interference
 The research I did for my language
  comparison paper served mainly to confirm
  the conclusions I had already reached
  regarding the reasons for the L1 Spanish
  student’s errors. Having previously studied
  for a degree in Spanish language and
  possessing the ability to use both languages, I
  was already able to analyze the errors caused
  by language interference.
Instructional Implications
 I think it would be useful to integrate L1/L2 comparison
  study into ESL lessons so that students could better
  anticipate what errors might be made (and repeated), and
  learn to self monitor their use of English.


 Visuals/charts featuring common English errors and
  correct usage could be created to display in the classroom.
  Students could make flashcards with the correct usage for
  practice.
References
 Coe, N. (2001) Speakers of Spanish and Catalan. In
  M. Swan & B. Smith (Eds). Learner English.
  Cambridge University Press, 2001. Cambridge
  Books Online
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667121.0
  08
 Romance Languages. (1991) In Grolier (Ed.),
  Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge (Vol.16, p.143)
 O’Grady, W., Dovrolsky. M., & Aronoff, M. (Eds.)
  (2004). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction
  (5th Edition). Boston, MA: Bedford/ St. Martin’s.

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Spanish and English Language Comparison

  • 1. Kim V. Steier Wilkes University SPANISH AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE COMPARISON
  • 2. The Spanish Language  Spanish is a Romance language, descended from Latin and belonging to the Indo-European language family (Grolier, 1991, p. 143). Historically, it has been spoken mainly in Spain and Latin America, but today is the first language of an increasing number of ELLs in the United States. This language comparison presentation examines the similarities and differences between Spanish and English from the perspective of explaining the types of language errors made by L1 Spanish speakers and the resulting instructional implications for ESL classroom settings.
  • 3. The Spanish Alphabet  The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the addition of one letter, eñe (ñ), to the Latin alphabet. This difference in alphabets does not present a problem for native Spanish speakers learning English. While there are many similarities between the Spanish and English consonant systems, the differences between the vowel systems and sentence stress present significant difficulties for ELLs.
  • 4. Coe (1987) defines the vowel differences as follows:  Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 diphthongs. The length of the vowel is not significant in distinguishing between words. This contrasts with English, which has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs. The length of the vowel sound plays an important role. It is not surprising, therefore, that Spanish learners may have great difficulty in producing or even perceiving the various English vowel sounds. Specific problems include the failure to distinguish the sounds in words such as ship/sheep, taught/tot, fool/full or cart/cat/cut (p. 91).
  • 5. Consonant Sounds  Although less problematic, there are some difficulties that L1 Spanish speakers may have with consonant sounds when learning English. These include: failure to pronounce the end consonant accurately or strongly enough, problems with the /v/ sound, difficulties in sufficiently distinguishing words such as see/she or jeep/sheep/cheap, the tendency to prefix words beginning with a consonant cluster on s- with an /ε/ sound, and the swallowing of sounds in other consonant clusters (next becomes nes and instead becomes istead). (Coe, 1987, p.95)
  • 6. Intonation Patterns  Spanish is considered a syllable-timed language. This results in Spanish speakers often transferring the intonation patterns of their mother tongue into English, which is a stress-timed language. The resulting speech may be barely comprehensible to native English speakers.
  • 7. Spelling  There is a strong correspondence between the sound of a word and its spelling in Spanish. The irregularity of English causes problems when Spanish learners write a word they first encounter in spoken language or say a word first introduced in written language. A specific problem concerns the spelling of English words with double letters. Spanish has only 3 double- letter combinations- cc, ll, rr. English, in comparison, has 5 times as many. Spanish learners often reduce English double letters to a single one, or overcompensate by doubling a letter unnecessarily. (Coe, 1987, p.99)
  • 8. Grammatical Differences  Numerous grammatical differences between the two languages result in other examples of negative transfer. For instance, a native Spanish speaker may say “I have 43 years,” because the verb used for expressing age in Spanish is translated to the English verb have. “The term transfer is used to describe the process whereby a feature or rule from a learner’s first language is carried over to the IL [interlanguage] grammar.” (O’Grady, 2010, p. 393). The easiest way to illustrate these interlanguage grammar challenges for ELLs is by looking at the data analysis journal of an L1 Spanish student.
  • 9. Data Analysis The data analysis  The student, Rafael Z., is a 43- journal that follows documents and year-old native of Mexico City analyzes written and whose first language is spoken language usage Spanish. Rafael has been living and errors made by an adult English language and working in the United learner attending ESL States for ten years. He began classes at Vista Adult taking ESL classes three years School in Vista, California. ago, starting in the Low Pre- literacy class (Level 1) and is presently in the High- Beginning class (Level 4).
  • 10. Collection of Data  A list of language errors has been compiled by utilizing writing samples obtained from Rafael’s classroom journal, notebook and other written assignments. Additional data was collected from recorded oral interviews that have been transcribed. These written and spoken errors have been categorized in the following chart, providing a visual means to assist in the detection of error patterns.
  • 11. Category of Error Student Samples  Adjective-Noun Order  I like the food Chinese.  You like the food Mexican?  Auxiliary Verbs  I __ no(t) like the (missing) hamburger.  __ You like drink the coffee?
  • 12. Category of Error Student Samples  Orthographical Errors  The childrens injoy legolan_ the saturday.  I need speack more inglish.  School is tree hours.  Sentence Structure/Awkward  Today is a day very hard for Word Order me.  I was all day Sunday at home.
  • 13. Category of Error Student Samples  Subject-Verb Agreement  My uncle go to the church.  My friend drink too much.  My uncle is _ teacher in  Use of Articles (omitted the church. or inserted)  We go to the Walmart.  I go __ church the Sundays.
  • 14. Category of Error Student Samples  Use of Prepositions  I live on Vista ___ about (incorrect or omitted) ten years.  The sons of my uncle go __ the park for ride bicycle.  My uncle is in home now.  I __ going now.  Verb Tense  I eat fish yesterday.  I __ from Mexico.
  • 15. Category of Error Student Samples  Word Usage (incorrect)  We drink a cup a beers __ the weekend.  Too much peoples go at the party.  I have 43 years.  My boss no pay me  Miscellaneous nothing one month.
  • 16. Types of Error Patterns and Causes of Errors  There are several patterns of errors made by Rafael that are common among English language learners with Spanish as their native language. Therefore, I believe that the majority of his errors can be attributed to language interference.  In the first category (adjective-noun order), adjectives follow nouns in the Spanish language, hence we see the reversed order. Use of the auxiliary verb “do” is difficult to acquire because there is not an equivalent Spanish word used in forming questions nor in making negative statements.
  • 17. Spelling errors Word order  Many of Rafael’s  Spanish syntax is generally orthographical errors are due more flexible than English to substituting the Spanish syntax, which often leads spelling for English vowel English language learners to sounds, writing a word the use awkward sentence way he pronounces it (“tree” structures or word order, instead of “three”), following even when they are L1 capitalization rules (days otherwise grammatically of the week and languages correct. are spelled in Spanish with the initial letter in lowercase), or by over generalizing newly learned spelling patterns (applying the ending “-ck” incorrectly in the word “speack”).
  • 18. 3rd Person Articles  Another area of confusion  The use of articles in English concerns the third-person can be very confusing for singular verb form. Spanish Spanish speakers. For verb conjugation is the same example, in English, one must for the subjects “you”, “he”, say, “I am a teacher,” but the and “ she”, whereas in English Spanish equivalent translates an –s must be added to the literally as “I am teacher.” A ending for “he,” “she” and student “thinking in Spanish” “it”. may incorrectly express “on Sundays” as “the Sundays”, and even when saying the specific name of a store (versus “the store”), the Spanish equivalent is “the Sears” or “the Walmart.”
  • 19. Prepositions “Apostrophe-s”  Prepositions are very  The “apostrophe- s” is tricky as well, not used at all in especially since the Spanish, so it is Spanish preposition common for native “en” can be translated Spanish speakers to as “in” or “on”. say “the (something) of (someone)” to indicate possession (“the sons of my uncle” instead of my uncle’s sons).
  • 20. Verb and Miscellaneous Errors  The verb “tener” (have) is  Verbs that are irregular in used to express age in the past tense are Spanish, hence “I have 43 problematic because they years.” Rafael heard must be memorized. Even someone say “a couple of though the present beers” and wrote “a cup a continuous is formed the beers.” He also incorrectly same way in English as in made “people” plural, as Spanish, students such as one might add an “s” to Rafael may tend to omit change “person” to the verb “be” because they “persons.” “Much” and often perceive “I’m going” “many” is essentially as “I going.” interchangeable in Spanish, the Spanish word “a” can be translated as “to” or “at”, and the double negative is correct to use in Spanish grammar.
  • 21. Language Interference  The research I did for my language comparison paper served mainly to confirm the conclusions I had already reached regarding the reasons for the L1 Spanish student’s errors. Having previously studied for a degree in Spanish language and possessing the ability to use both languages, I was already able to analyze the errors caused by language interference.
  • 22. Instructional Implications  I think it would be useful to integrate L1/L2 comparison study into ESL lessons so that students could better anticipate what errors might be made (and repeated), and learn to self monitor their use of English.  Visuals/charts featuring common English errors and correct usage could be created to display in the classroom. Students could make flashcards with the correct usage for practice.
  • 23. References  Coe, N. (2001) Speakers of Spanish and Catalan. In M. Swan & B. Smith (Eds). Learner English. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Cambridge Books Online http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667121.0 08  Romance Languages. (1991) In Grolier (Ed.), Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge (Vol.16, p.143)  O’Grady, W., Dovrolsky. M., & Aronoff, M. (Eds.) (2004). Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (5th Edition). Boston, MA: Bedford/ St. Martin’s.