Job Discussion Forums

[nomadder]

What about the fact that the "t" can never be pronounced in the word often?

I've heard that German students are among the worst for correcting teachers.

[Jon Taylor]

[quote="nomadder"]What about the fact that the "t" can never be pronounced in the word often?
quote]


American English (or should I say English spoken with an American accent) doesn't pronounce the 't' in often.

[mrjohndub]

[fluffyhamster]

Thanks for the clarification, John.

Tell this JTE that it isn't your job to rehash, confirm or LIMIT yourself to just what the students were taught in high school (assuming you have a fair intake of students around HS age). (Of course, it isn't really your job to explicitly DENY any of all that either, but the only reason you are seeming to "need" to do so is because she is openly contradicting you and your "differing" take on the language). You could also point out that if an AET acted as she is doing (not that you consider her an assitant!), the AET's BOE or dispatch company would soon receive a communication that the AET was no longer required at the school for at least the remainder of the current term (it's a question of who is and should be perceived to be "in charge" of the class). Then, there are sayings like "Too many cooks spoil the broth", and questions like "Can you make an authentic lasagne without any actual lasagne?" etc (that's more to appeal to the students' tastes than to say that non-natives have no claim to the language absolutely...it all depends ultimately on whether the issue at hand is genuinely trivial versus "non-negotiable", for any competent speaker needing to make a very important distinction meaning-wise in their speech or writing. Seems this JTE is picking the wrong sort of fights from what you've said).

You can appreciate her helping when that is actually what she is genuinely doing, but for her to say that her contradicting you is helping the students if not you is just opening that whole stinking can of worms about just how much use the high school English education in Japan is. If you were an AET at her school, the maintaining and/or bolstering of her ego would be expected and necessary (so as not to undermine the students' confidence in her, especially after you'd moved on), but a private language school is not the place for shenanigans like that (because the expectations and goals of the majority involved are a little different, to say the least).

[abufletcher]

[nomadder]

Webster says no t and Cambridge says both ways are OK. I think many Japanese just want to think there is one right(standard) way or at least for purposes of testing. Considering Japanese is only spoken in one country I guess they are used to this.

[japanman]

I also found that some students think they are experts on a certain culture when they have no idea at all. I once had a group of old ladies and none of them had ever been to England but as soon as I told them about England, they were the experts. I am ofcourse English.
Is this common?

[mrjohndub]

I'm curious what it is that you mean. Could you illustrate that with an example?

I have a few students who have been well-travelled and are quite humble about it, and a few students who have travelled abroad to perhaps one or two countries and yak yak yak about their adventures in wherever all the time. I think it's kind of funny, actually. But the trend I've seen is the less traveled, the more obssessed they are with one or two particular destinations or what it is that they perceive to be the culture there.

[canuck]

[abufletcher]

[mrjohndub]

Got something against Texans, Abufletcher? Haha.

Canuck, who are these esteemed people who created this website you refer to as fact? What are their qualifications? Let's look at the list:

"We would like to thank Bernard Comrie, Betty Starling, Christo Lombaard, Jaklin Kornfilt, John Whitman, Margarita Su�er, Mark Aronoff, Owen Beard, Patricia Tancred, Peter McCrossin, Philip Baldi, Tim Goodwin, George Williams, Ernesto Santos, Lucian Chimene, Jay Handle, Gestin Suttle, Robert Bell, and Simon Venner for helping yourDictionary collect this list of oft mispronounced words."

Oh, wait. Jaklin Kornfilt says it's often with no 't' so that must be the case. Looks like somebody misspelled her name...oh, and let's not overlook the last part of that list when the word 'oft' is used. I suppose that's supposed to be pronounced like 'off,' right?

Do you just blindly trust the internet? I'm willing to bet that both are correct.

[canuck]

What you found people who pronounced "raspberry" using the "p" sound? Is that right too, or are both correct? What about mature and mature?

People's opinions differ. Micheal Swan says that both are used.

[fluffyhamster]

[abufletcher]

[Zzonkmiles]