Sla

Difficulties of SLA

First of all what does second language acquisition mean?

It is the way and method of studying a language which is not the mother tongue language. Every person has a native language which they study after their birth. Second language - or as it is sometimes called the target language вЂ"is studied after early childhood. A person can have not only second, but third, fourth or more target languages. So the word second is not only for that language which is the second one that one is introduced, but every other language differing from the mother tongue language.

The main causes of the difficulties in learning the second language are the differences from the native language. People who speak certain first language have more difficulties in learning English language. For example for a native Chinese, English is more difficult than for a German. These difficulties are originated from the mother tongue.

Although English is not such difficult to learn, there are a few features of it which are quite complex and therefore create difficulties for the majority of language learners. We can mention here Pronunciation, Grammar, Vocabulary, the differences between Spoken and Written English.

Pronunciation

• Consonants - English has only a few individual consonant sounds. Among these I can mention /ОÑ'/ and /Ð"o/ (the sounds written with th), which are the most common in English (thin, thing, etc.; and the, this, that, etc.). These are relatively rare in other languages. Many learners substitute a [t] or [d] sound, many Hungarian learner substitute an [sz] sound, that is more natural and easier to pronounce for them. Some of them are not able to formulate their mouth and tongue in the proper way to pronounce this sound. Another sound which is not so common in other languages is /Ð*‹/ (as in singing). The learner’s task is further complicated by the fact that native speakers may drop consonants or do not pronounce them in certain position.

• Vowels - English has a moderate number of vowel sounds, although not all are phonemic. The precise number depends on the variety of English: for example, Received Pronunciation has twelve monophthongs, eight diphthongs and two triphthongs; whereas American English is simpler, with only eleven monophthongs and three diphthongs. Some of them are not existing in other languages.

RP Monophtongs

Front Central Back

Close

Half-close

Half-open

Open

• Syllable structure - In its syllable structure, English allows up to three consonants before the vowel and four consonants after the vowel (e.g., straw, desks, glimpsed). The syllable structure causes problems for speakers of many other languages.

• Unstressed vowels - Native English speakers often replace a long or short vowel with an unstressed vowel (often schwa) in an unstressed syllable. For example, from has a short 'o' sound when it is stressed (e.g., Where is your dog?), but when it is unstressed, the short 'o' is replaced by a schwa (e.g., I'm from London.). In English stress is a more emphasised vowel quality than it is in other world languages. For a learner as a second language syllables like an, en, in, on and un can be heard as same syllables. A native can distinguish an able, enable, and unable because of their position in a sentence, but it is is very difficult for an English speaker whose mother tongue is not English.

Grammar

• Tenses - English has a relatively large number of tenses with some quite subtle differences in their usage. Most learners of English find this difficult to master. For example in Hungarian we only have past, present and future, but in English, desides these three aspects, each has three tenses. When most of the students hear it first they become frightened, that how are they going to learn it, and what most, make difference of them and their usage causes difficulties, too. not only the number of tenses are difficult, but the ones which are not existing in our language, like Present Perfect.

• Functions of auxiliaries - Learners find it difficult to use and understand the various ways in which English uses the auxiliary verbs of a tense. Here we can mention negation (eg He hasn't been drinking.), inversion with the subject to form a question (eg Has he been drinking?), short answers (eg Yes, he has.) and tag questions (has he?) as well. Dummy auyiliary verbs do /did can cause further complications. It is difficult as well, that in our language we do not translate auxililary verbs, that is why some students ask what is the reason of them if we do not translate, and they do not have an exact meaning.

• Modal verbs вЂ" Since English has many modal auxiliary verbs with a number