Skip to main content

This is a form of a phenomenon called hypercorrection.

The problem is that the sound [w] does not exist in German and indeed there are many German speaking people who are unable or unaware to pronounce this sound and use [v] instead. This is what makes the traditional German accent. (Mainly spoken by people who learned English rather late or only know some phrases.)
Now, if at some point English speaking Germans learn how to pronounce the [w] sound, they will have a tendency to overgeneralise this as they try to hide their original accent. (This happens sub-consciously and is not only a phenomenon seen by English speaking foreigners).


Warmest regards,
PBC- Department of Scientific English Language
- Chief Executive Officer
Pedro Benny C.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to use "talk to" and "talk with"?

Many English learners and students of mine, especially in Maputo province where I currently live, confuse talk to for talk with (which is mostly because of the inability to distinguish the differences between the two. Given that this is commonly mistaken by some English-as-a-Second-language speakers, it does not generally mean that it must be related to  hypercorrection  linguistics. This kind of slight unconscious mistake is just a simple grammar lesson that, by far, seems unimportant, but requires our concentration and should also be hammer homed. The differences between the two phrasal verbs are slightly lilliputians, therefore the mistake remains sub-concious. Here is what I think about them: TO TALK TO  To talk to can mean one-sided conversation, i.e, it means that the conversation is likely going to be held mostly by one part/side of the conversationalists during a certain reprimand. I would like to talk to the last student about something I have n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Latin shorthands: cf., vs., etc.

Hey there English learners! Today, we're going to understand  some Latin shorthanded  r o ots that prevail in English writing catgory. Thus, its field of study is stenography:  the art or process of writing in shorthand.  Here we go!   1. E.g.   The abbreviation “ e.g. " comes from the Latin phrase “ exempli gratia ", which translates literally as " f or example ," and it is used in English with that meaning to introduce one or more examples that illustrate something previously stated in order to make it more clear or understandable.   Here is an example:   1.1.  There are many communist countries in the world,  e.g. , China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba.   2. Etc.   The Latin phrase  et cetera  has been used in English since the early Middle Ages and translates as "and others of the same kind" or "and so forth." (Et  means "and";  cētera  means "the other, other...
Post a Comment
Read more

Toward or towards?

The words toward and towards can cause confusion and unease in people’s writing because not many of us are sure when to use which one. I t’s worth taking notes that both  words are directional words, in other words, most of the times they are going to indicate a certain case that has a relationship with movement toward something or someone. Furthermore, s ome people differentiate the two words in various ways, but these preferences are not borne out (proven) in the usage of most English speakers.   Neither form is more formal or informal or more or less logical than the other. Some dictionaries support this idea: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/toward  (Oxford Dictionarry) and  https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/towards  (Macmillan dictionary). However, you can use whichever sounds better to you. Toward and towards are both prepositional words that mean  in the direction of something or someone, in a p...
Post a Comment
Read more