Phonetic Mistakes Romanians
Phonetic Mistakes Romanians
Phonetic Mistakes Romanians
Patricia SERBAC
University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Trgu-Mure, Romania
Abstract: Communication in the medical field is often impaired because of mistakes made by
Romanian speakers of English. Confusion may appear because of the differences in the
phonological systems of the two languages. The tendency of some speakers to make
pronunciation mistakes touches several areas: the reproducing of vowels and consonants, the
accent and the segmentation of the string of sounds. The paper brings relevant examples of
pronunciation traps which should be avoided. Correct pronunciation is important both in direct
communication and in telemedicine.
1. Introduction
A good communication in the medical field is important in the practice of the medical
profession and in research. It is crucial in the relationship between a therapist and his
patient, namely in the conduct of the medical interview, which is the first and often the
most relevant stage in finding the diagnosis. It is important also in the relationship
between physicians when performing a medical activity together or when doing research.
This relationship can be established by direct communication but also by video chat
systems and video conferencing applications, when the sound level may be not high
enough or when other types of noise may appear on the communication channel.
And last but not least, a good pronunciation is crucial also in the relationship between
man and gadgets, namely when using speech recognition systems, including healthcare
IT. There are devices which do not work if they do not understand the audio commands.
Glitches when using such gadgets are disturbing.
As telemedicine has increasingly developed lately, the main or the only means of
expression in this type of communication is the voice. In such situations the phonetic
component of language rises in importance. Telehealth practitioners speaking a foreign
language must pay attention to phonetic traps which can disrupt the process of
communication.
2. Phonetic traps
Romanian speakers of English are also prone to certain pronunciation mistakes. The
first sources for confusion are the differences between the phonological systems of
Standard Englishi and Standard Romanian. Another source can be the incomplete
acquisition of phonological traits in certain words.
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Suppose a therapist would like to examine the thumb of a patient and would say: I
want to see the sum. Show me the sum!. What would the patient possibly think of, other
than the doctor is interested in money? Or suppose (s)he would say This leg is sick
instead of thick.v Or suppose (s)he would try to say this treatment is worth trying and
would fail into this treatment is worse, this piece of advice which would have quite the
opposite effect as the patient would think that the doctor does not recommend the
treatment.vi The sentence you are thin could result into you are [a] sin and have faith
into have [a] face, which are nonsense messages.vii The same way, the thigh of a
patient would become the sigh. Or suppose a psychiatrist wants to say that a patient is
wrath. Instead, the message transmitted would be that the patient is Ross.viii Of course,
Ross can also be wrath, but in psychiatry clinics there might also be other wrath patients,
not only Ross.
The following minimal pairs are to be practised by practitioners of the medical field:
// /s/
tenth /ten/ tense /tens/
mouth /ma/ mouse /mas/
thumb /m/ sum /sm/, some /sm/ (the strong form)
thick /k/ sick /sk/
worth /w(r)/ worse /w(r)s/
thin /n/ sin /sn
faith /fe/ face /fes/
thigh /a/ sigh /sa/
wrath /r/ Ross /rs/
// versus /t/
Another frequent appearance is the mistaking of // for /t/. Thus, three membranes
of the spinal cord of man become tree membranes, a strange symbiosis between man
and plants (!), and the myelin sheath of nerves becomes the myelin sheet of nerves.
In order to illustrate this possible change in meaning I give here contexts from the
textbook English in Medicine. A Text Book for Doctors, Students in Medicine and Nurses
of Viorica Dobrovici and Ioan Bostaca. The wrong, distorted sentences are marked with
an asterisk:
Medical context with the correct word Medical context with the wrong word
three /ri/ tree /tri/
The brain and spinal cord are enclosed within * The brain and spinal cord are enclosed
three membranes. (Dobrovici and Bostaca within tree membranes.
1999, 28)
sheath /i/ sheet /it/
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The chief glycolipids are the cerebrosidea * The chief glycolipids are the cerebrosidea
which occur in particularly in brain tissue and which occur in particularly in brain tissue and
in myelin sheath of nerves. (Dobrovici and in myelin sheet of nerves.
Bostaca 1999, 105)
Unfortunately, death is a topic in hospitals, too. But some doctors and nurses
transform it into a debt, and this may again hurt the feelings of patients and their beloved
ones. Unless one wants to say, along with a Romanian poet, that one death is anyhow
our debt.ix
The same way, faith can transform into fate. Have [a] fate instead of Have faith
is not meant to alleviate the emotions of the sick.x
Suppose a doctor wants to say to a patient I would like to examine your thigh. If
(s)he does not pronounce the interdental correctly the result could be I would like to
examine your tie(!).
The verb thrust may be mispronounced as trust. An indication given amongst
ambulance and first-aid health practitioners, Do not thrust the patient, would become
Do not trust the patient.
Another minimal pair differing only in the final consonant (interdental fricative and
alveolar stop) is teeth teat. Suppose a physician would transmit to another physician
by Skype an indication like: Take out the teeth! / Remove the teeth! / Operate the
teeth!. If the pronunciation is wrong, the patient is at risk of losing another part of the
body.
The noun therm (a unit for measuring heat) could be misunderstood as a term. The
adjective thick in a sentence like your blood is thick could be understood as tick, which
makes no sense.
The botanical term pith could be mistakenly confounded with pit. Sentences like do
not eat the pith or you may eat the pith (of the orange) would become weird with the
noun pit instead, which is a term of botany, but also of anatomy, pathology and even
zoology.xi
Mispronunciation can touch also the prepositions through and with, changing them
into the adjective true and the noun wit. And perhaps too much wit in the medical
discourse would make it more joyful than it is meant to be.
The following minimal pairs are recommended to be practised:
// /t/
three /ri/ tree /tri/
sheath /i/ sheet /it/
death /de/ debt /det/
faith /fe/ fate /fet/
thigh /a/ tie /ta/
thrust /rst/ trust /trst/
teeth /ti/ teat /tit/
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Medical context with the correct word Medical context with the wrong word
three /ri/ free /fri/
The brain and spinal cord are enclosed within * The brain and spinal cord are enclosed
three membranes. (Dobrovici and Bostaca within free membranes.
1999, 28)
// /f/
three /ri/ free /fri/
thirst /(r)st/ first /f(r)st/
death /de/ deaf /def/
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Nor do the following sentences have more sense: *he has cut himself with the size by
accident, *he has fallen on the size.
// /z/
breathe /bri/ breeze /briz/
with /w/ whizz /wz/
scythe /sa/ size /saz/
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// versus /i:/
Thus, a word like sick /sk/ would be pronounced like seek /sik/.xiv The following
minimal pairs would be uttered identically: lid /ld/ lead /lid/, lip /lp/ leap /lip/, fist
/fst/ feast /fist/, fit /ft/ feet /fit/, pill /pl/ peel /pil/, dip /dp/ deep /dip/, pit /pt/
peat /pit/ and pip /pp/ peep /pip/.xv Imagine a health professional would try to
encourage a patient by telling him I want you to live, You have to live, or You will
live. A possible pronunciation mistake could distort the meaning of such sentences even
into their opposites: I want you to leave, You have to leave [the hospital] or You will
leave [this life]. Imagine a nutritionist would tell a patient You may eat the deal instead
of the dill.xvi An assertion like You are ill could sound like You are [an] eelxvii and We
have to fill this cavity could sound like We have to feel this cavity. The patients
condition results from the hit could be mispronounced and therefore misunderstood as
The patients condition results from the heatxviii, which could lead to errors of diagnosis
and treatment. A patient may have a crick /krk/, i.e. a sudden pain in the neck due to
the muscles becoming stiff, but mispronunciation can transform it into a creak /krik/, i.e.
a high noise made by something wooden when moving, or into a creek /krik/, i.e. a
narrow stream or a narrow and long area of sea stretching into the land.xix
The lack of the ability to discriminate between the FLEECE and the KIT vowels
makes words like beat and bit sound alike, as for instance when talking about the beats
of the heart or the bits of the heart.
/ / /i:/
// versus /e/
The English TRAP vowel is often pronounced by Romanians like the closer DRESS
vowel, as many cannot sense the vowel quality. Words like bad /bd/ and bed /bed/
may be pronounced identically, which creates confusion between a bad condition bed
condition. Or between bedside nurses and bad side nurses, i.e. nurses on the bad
side, where the listener could only wonder, what those might be. A sentence like He
was bitten by a gnat could become He was bitten by a net thus causing nonsense
because, obviously, nets do not bite.xx Dad /dd/ could be dead /ded/, killed by a mere
mispronunciation,xxi and the patient pack initiative could lose its judicial value and
become the patient peck initiative, i.e. the initiative of the patient to peck or to give a
quick light kissxxii. A band /bnd/, a narrow circular object, like in lap band surgery,
gastric band surgery could become a bend /bend/, i.e. a curve or an exercise
movement in which the patient moves the body.xxiii
/ / /e/
Beverly Collins and Inger Mees consider the widespread confusion of crucial
phonemic contrasts like / i:/ and / e/ the most severe of all types of errors. They
belong to category 1: Errors leading to potential breakdown of intelligibility (Collins and
Mees 2013, 215).
The adjective egressive /i:gresv/ is derived from the verb egress /i:gres/ (very
formal) the action of leaving a placexxiv. As it is a word that Romanians learners of
English might not encounter often, they might not know its pronunciation and mistakenly
interpret the letter e as a written sign for the phoneme . The result would be another
word: aggressive /resv/. Thus, the pulmonic egressive airstream mechanismxxv
could become *the pulmonic aggressive airstream mechanism.
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The stress could be a problem for Romanians as they wouldnt expect this
suprasegmental feature to be distinctive in the case of some minimal pairs that may
appear in the medical field. If a Romanian wrongly places the stress in the verb to digest
on the first syllable, (s)he would actually say a summation of articles. xxvi Let us imagine
that a patient has with a beauty spot and a physician tells her you have a beauty spot
i.e. picturesque face, so she understands it as a compliment or as a neutral sentence
with no connection to the discussion. And what could happen if patients followed the
advice of a physician saying, instead of eat green stuff, i.e. eat green vegetables, eat
green stuff, i.e. eat anything that is green! When referring to the brains, Romanian
physicians should put the stress on the first syllable, grey-matter, otherwise the result
would be grey matter, i.e. anything grey.xxvii
1 word 2 words
incise /nsaz/ in size /n saz/
incite /nsat/ in site /n sat/
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The verb incise /nsaz/ means to cut into the body with a sharp knife xxviii. But a
too long break when uttering it makes it in size /n saz/, e.g. After six months the tumour
had doubled in size.xxix. The same way, the verb incite /nsat/ to encourage people to
be violent or commit crimes by making them angry or excitedxxx, may become in site /n
sat/ a particular place in the body.xxxi
The larynx is the organ in your throat that contains your vocal cords, which produce
sounds and not a lair + rinks.xxxii A mountaineer is not a mountain ear, i.e. the ear of a
mountain.xxxiii Similarly, inhale is not in + hale, assault is not a + salt, and allowed is not
a + loud.
A catgut /ktt/, a strong string made from animals intestines, used for making
the strings of musical instrumentsxxxiv is neither a cat + a gut, nor a cat gut, that could
be interpreted as the gut of a cat, the gut from a cat. All over the world surgeons use
catgut prepared from sheep intestines to suture incisions resulted from surgeries. Viorica
Dobrovici and Ioan Bostaca teach notions about catgut in the chapter Drugs of the
Protein Group: Catgut is prepared from sheep intestines. [] Catgut (collagen) is made
up of innumerable fine filaments and is used for internal sutures, because it is gradually
digested in the tissues. (Dobrovici and Bostaca 1999, 267); In medicine, it is used as
an absorbable and ligature material (Dobrovici and Bostaca 1999, 268). But if a
Romanian surgeon pronounces it like cat gut, colleagues could understand that cat
intestines are used instead and would perhaps wonder about this original technique!
3. Conclusions
So, direct communication and telemedicine communication can be seriously
affected by pronunciation mistakes. Let us hope that situations like the ones described
above, if they ever happen, remain just funny situations and the initial misunderstanding
is solved by repeating the sentence more times and by understanding the correct
meaning of the words in context. Even if the phonetic mistake added to a medical term
does not produce words with another meaning, it still creates discomfort.
No wonder pronunciation gadgets have appeared on the market: The SayMedicine
mobile app (iPhone $4.99) audibly pronounces medical terms to help doctors and
students prevent embarrassment when they encounter a new term. It also allows
searching for more info on terms using eMedicine, Google, and Wikipedia.xxxv
Romanians with professions in the medical field who have to use the English
language must not neglect the pronunciation, in order to speak in an intelligible way. This
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is why this synthesis of the most vulnerable points of pronunciation of words from the
medical vocabulary could be useful to them in their attempt to achieve a near native
Standard English pronunciation.
Unfortunately neglected, phonetics helps to fulfilling communication needs in the
medical field.
References
Webography
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ [accessed March 2015].
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/thesaurus/ [accessed March 2015].
http://www.merriam-webster.com/ [accessed March 2015].
http://www.shiporsheep.com/ [accessed March 2015].
http://histalkmobile.com/news-12611/ [accessed March 2015].
i
Standard Southern British English is basically meant here by this.
ii
I will not enter further details and discuss here the distinctions between the strong and weak version of the
CAH (described by Constantin 2012, 131-132), though I prefer the weak version, i.e. I do not exclude also
other causes for pronunciation mistakes. Neither will I refer to other theoretical models for the acquisition of
L2 phonology or to the experimental data results of Elena Raluca Constantin. Like her I see CAH as a starting
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point for identifying types of errors and the aim of my paper is restricted to pointing out problems Romanian
speakers of English may face.
iii
The term interdental is used as well as here, like in the works of Dumitru Chioran (Chioran 1978, 203) and
of Elena Raluca Constantin (Constantin 2012, 138), though British linguists use the term dental. As Peter
Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson show, these fricatives are dental at most of the BE speakers and interdental at
most of the AE speakers (Ladefoged and Maddieson 2008, 143). Hartwig Eckert and William Barry use the
term postdental (Eckert and Barry 2005, 87).
iv
The minimal pair mouth mouse is cited also in Chioran and Prlog 1989, 71.
v
The minimal pair thick sick also appears on the website Shiporsheep.com for online pronunciation practice
(http://www.shiporsheep.com/page28.html).
vi
The minimal pair worth worse also appears on the website Shiporsheep.com
(http://www.shiporsheep.com/page28.html).
vii
The pairs thin sin and faith - face are also given by Chioran and Petri 1977, 87.
viii
The minimal pair wrath Ross also appears at Chioran and Prlog 1989, 198 and on
http://www.shiporsheep.com/page28.html.
ix
Approximate translation of the verse cu-o moarte tot suntem datori. The poet is George Cobuc (Cobuc
1994, 61. See the volume Fire de tort, republished in Timioara: Editura Helicon, 1994).
x
The minimal pair faith fate is mentioned by Chioran and Petri 1977, 87.
xi
A short look on The Free Dictionary provides one with the plenty of meanings of pit as a term in the field of
medicine and of biology in general (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pit).
xii
The last sense is from the MacMillan dictionary
(http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/size_1).
xiii
An encouragement for Romanian learners (but not a reason to give up!) could be the fact that some of these
phenomena exist also in some varieties of English. Many Cockney speakers have th-fronting, i.e. the
realization of dental fricatives as labio-dental ones (Collins and Mees 2013, 169; Eckert and Barry 2005, 88).
Th-stopping, i.e. replacing dental fricatives by stops, can be heard in Southern Irish English and many speakers
in Liverpool and in New York, in Indian English, Sierra Leone. In the West Country (the south-west of England)
some speakers replace the initial // by /d/ (Collins and Mees 2013, 180, 184, 189, 195, 199 and respectively
171).
xiv
This minimal pair is mentioned also by Constantin 2012, 396.
xv
The minimal pairs lip leap, fist feast, fit feet, pill peel and dip deep are mentioned also by Chioran
and Petri 1977, 60.
xvi The minimal pairs live leave and dill deal are mentioned also by Chioran and Petri 1977, 60. The pair