jesse_the_k | Why I love being an English language partner

Every week for most of the last 30 years, I have volunteered as an English language partner. Since 2024, I’ve treasured my time with two people who’ve learned English as a foreign language. I get to spend time with people who have weirdly requested that I correct their pronunciation and grammar. It’s a pleasantly zen task: listening carefully then offering precise feedback about a language I love. In return, I’ve enjoyed learning their stories from Chile and Taiwan/Germany/hiking world-wide.

I needed no formal TEFL qualifications since many orgs here are eager to connect me to learners wanting to practice their conversational and reading skills. I’ve worked with four:

UW-Madison enrolls many international graduate students; their families want to learn.
Our local technical college
Private school serving young adults from wealthy families world wide
Local non-profit providing free education for immigrants and under-resourced citizens

I am so lucky to be a native speaker of this Farkakt language, which is becoming (thanks colonialism) the global lingua franca while hellish to learn. The horrors of spelling! The 20 (or more) vowel sounds! The vocabulary stolen from hundreds of languages (note 1) resulting in multiple ways to express the same idea. The only constant is that no rules always apply.

Note 1: james_david_nicoll’s 15 minutes of fame:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

James D Nicoll 15 May 1990 in rec.arts.sf.written on USENET

Going on disability gave me more time to volunteer, and I’ve learned so much and met so many intriguing people. If you have time to volunteer, tell me about it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

otter

Fun thing to me about about the way Farkakt sounds and means - kak is like kaka is like shit. and it means originally to shit upon or shat upon.

I enjoy languages. Put me in an immersive environment, for example with the cousins and aunties in a kitchen in Northern Norway, and within a few weeks I pick up enough to understand and be understood about basic things. Haven't tried it with languages that aren't closely related to English/German/French that I studied in school.

From:

jesse_the_k

Thanks for the "kak" insight — I knew there was something gratifying about the word. (My first second language was Greek, where I lived age 4. Sadly it's all gone.)

What a good ear you must have to pick up on Norwegian! We've recently enjoyed two Norwegian TV series — Pørni aka Pernille and Hjem til jul aka Home for Christmas — which feature family life, the infelicities of romance, and much beautiful scenery.

From:

otter

I enjoy watching shows/movies in their original languages, with subtitles on. I forgot I also took a year of Ancient Greek when I was in college. Whatever for?

From:

jesse_the_k

To recognize "kak" in "Farkakt"? /flees

From:

otter

LOL. but not that. Kaka is just a childhood word we weren't allowed to say. I had to say "BM", not even allowed to say "poop" at home.

From:

jesse_the_k

Sorry to hear it — childhood is hard enough with extra rules.

From:

sonia

Your volunteering is so cool! And I love that James Nicoll quote.

I recently heard a coworker pronounce subsequent in a meeting as sub-SEE-kwent, and I'm still pondering whether it would be a kindness to mention it. It's a hard word to work into a sentence as a positive example, and she wouldn't necessarily realize it's the same word. Like me pronouncing anxious as an-ksi-os when I read to myself and not realizing ang-shus was the same word when I heard it.

Also relevant,

conuly's recent post about "there ARE rules for English, so there" while linking to a list of so many rules that it doesn't actually support the point.

From:

thistleingrey

I've learned over time that Indian English, Singaporean English, etc. have their own internal logic of pronunciation and syntax (plus, each is not unitary, but that's less relevant here). When I understand at a workplace what someone has said, I don't comment unless they ask for feedback.

I did give my mother a tough time when I was young until she learned eleMENtary, but it was on long car rides. And I used to be a reader-vocab person myself ("vehement" seems to be a classic obstacle for many, including me). Even so--I think workplaces are different.

From:

sonia

People generally dislike being corrected for sure.

My parents wouldn't take my word for anything, I was always the one who was wrong - except, occasionally, I could be proved right on pronunciation or meaning by consulting the dictionary. English was their fourth or fifth language each.

From:

thistleingrey

Ah, that's especially tough. It seems to me that a lot rests with the conversational context. My father tried telling small me that I was wrong, but his exceptions matched British or Commonwealth pronunciation/phrasing--he lived in Canada before the US. He was "wrong" for where we lived in the US, so we argued until I suggested that he listen more carefully at work (because he himself wanted to fit in better). A snotty kid could tell him that at home, in other words, but kid me wouldn't have risked it on a social peer or another adult: it damages the hearer's dignity, I think, and can create lasting wounds.

From:

jesse_the_k

Were you lucky enough to experience your spelling all in the USA, or did you have to learn to code switch that, as well?

If not, you might be amused by (without any endorsement of the author) Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English

From:

thistleingrey

That's a great link, thank you!

A close friend from middle school (ongoing, we're still in touch) spent their earlier childhood in Canada. I accreted the friend's mother's pronunciation of "south" and "about," however, not the friend's. The friend's mother had worked as a schoolteacher and explained the pronunciation of "ballet" etc. to me, which was a lovely and fairly neutral way for me to become acquainted with a wider range of Englishes. I'm a lifelong US West Coaster, but I was responsible for making my father's resumes and job cover letters Be Right from when I was 11 (whence the arguing!), so I had to think about what I was doing and why, pretty early.

IMO all these things form a lovely resource-base to have in one's head for meeting people partway. If one must code-switch sometimes, well, at least one knows partly how! :)

From:

jesse_the_k

I'm glad you fulfilled your sacred duty as Be Right Guardian.

Learning about code-switching is the first step to understanding the power of a non-conscious ideology — that the whole world isn't "just like us," that cultural rules vary according to who/where/what.

From:

jesse_the_k

I've learned so much from the 20-plus folks I've worked with. When possible, we meet to stroll on the bike paths, so we also get to talk about urban nature.

I bet there's a term for folks like me and you (and most likely everyone reading here) who learned more vocabulary from reading than hearing. I mispronounced so many words until 6th-7th grade, when general American phonology finally stuck. The last one I remember was matériel, which I confused with matter and material, providing my father with ample chances to correct me. (I'm at least a 2nd-gen serial pronunciation correcter.)

No helpful ideas for handling your coworker's situation, sadly.

Thanks for point out that great conuly post. Zompist (which DYAC wants to fix to 'compost') even admits The point is, what follows are the default rules that work 85% of the time. Gee whiz, Bob, mutual comprehension is severely compromised by a 15% error rate. (Reminds me of how severely a sub 10% error rate can render automatic captioning useless.)

OTOH, Bob reviews Latin American comics, an enthusiasm I share with my Chilean partner, so that's helpful!

From:

redbird

Chris Gorrie, in his "Dead Language Society" newsletter, made a good argument that a large part of the problem with English spelling is that it was standardized at exactly the wrong time: basically, that the invention and then importation of the printing press led to a lot of standardization. And that was in the middle of what linguists call the Great Vowel Shift.

I believe French spelling has a similar problem, but I don't know enough French to be sure of it. There seem to be even more silent letters than in English.

From:

jesse_the_k

Hmm, I recently read that English spelling wasn't systematically standardized until Jonson's Dictionary in the mid-1750s, but I can't remember where and I didn't keep notes. That'll learn me.

https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/why-english-spelling-will-never-make is the newsletter you speak of? Ling comm is my happy place, so I'll check it out. Do you find it worth the cost?

From:

redbird

If I understood that article correctly, it wasn’t so much that spelling was standardized that early, as that when it was, it was a choice among no-longer-phonetic spellings.

Also, I’m only getting the free newsletter, because I don’t value it enough to pay what he charges for a subsription.

From:

sheafrotherdon

I have been thinking about finding places to volunteer to do this. It seems like a good way to help people in my community!

From:

jesse_the_k

satisfaction for word-lovers like you and me, I appreciate the chance to widen my worldview.

I'm very grateful that my partners are willing to respect my no-politics boundaries.

From:

merrileemakes

How lovely you can look back on something you enjoy and see all the lives you've helped.

I would love to go on disability and volunteer more, but alas I can physically work 2.5 hours a week more than the maximum allowed for disability. Plus I'm ridiculously overpaid, so there's that.

My main volunteering is with my local spinners and weavers group. I'm a spinner, weaver and knitter myself and find the group so inspiring and affirming to be around. I manage their memberships, website and social media presence, provide ICT support, demonstrate at and promote them at fibre festivals and local events, and help run a weekly drop in weaving group.

I really enjoy helping people get into weaving. We've had people turn up with their looms still flat packed in boxes and I've built it, taught them how to get started, what to borrow from our library to take them further and watched them develop into fully fledged, passionate weavers. I love it.

From:

yourlibrarian

Sounds like a great thing to volunteer for!

I'll bet there are similar programs in my town as we get a lot of international students and even our apartment complex has a mix of nationalities.

From:

jesse_the_k

In addition to the four programs mentioned in the post, there are at least a dozen more informal ones, hosted by religious and community orgs with room for small crowds.

From:

jesse_the_k

to weave both textiles and community so elegantly!

From:

merrileemakes

Awwww, thank you! :)

From:

seascribble

I have benefited from this in French! There is a program called ShareAmi (a pun on cher ami) that pairs young (and youngish) people with seniors in France to practice French and support the seniors to not feel lonely. Mine was a funny old guy named Thierry who would give me writing and reading exercises as homework and needle me to debate about politics. 😂 I was sad when I moved to Canada and didn't have the time to keep phoning, although we texted a few times.

From:

jesse_the_k

ShareAmi is a beautiful pun and what an outstanding give-and-take.

From:

lunabee34

That sounds like such an amazing experience.

From:

jesse_the_k

Among the many things I've learned is the heavy hegemony of US cultural exports. Not only does this suppress other cultures' perspectives, it means there are millions of people who think "folks in the US are like the folks on the screen," which is so rarely the case.