Our catch phrase is on its way.

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

Many people, as they try to learn a foreign language, start rationalizing in an effort to equate their rate of speaking with nativelike competency. For example, I have had Hong Kong people tell me that Americans and Englishmen speak too “slowly” (mispronouncing it as “snow-ly” as they explained). Such opinions as this are not limited to people from Hong Kong. In general, adults give up on trying to master a new language’s phonology and instead rationalize with such ideas as “Natives’ pronunciations are wrong,” or “I know that I sound native,” or “I’m proud of my non-native accent.” They even start talking about developing some sort of “World English” that will allow them to speak without regard to English pronunciation. However, the essence of true England based English is its pronunciation. How can anyone dare to tamper with that when they don’t even have a clue of how it really feels to speak English as a native speaker does. Just as I wish to protect Seneca, Rapa Nui, and Irish Gaelic, so too do I wish to protect England based English, Hindustani based English, African based Spanish,– in short any language! To this end, I must determine which speech motor skills need to be developed – and which language specific synergy centers need to be activated. While the corpus callosum does unite the hemispheres of the brain in adults, it can use the help of a Jingles bridge (even if that bridge is manifested only in speech motor skills modification) so that the proper amounts and types of synergies can flow back and forth between them so as to support nativelike pronunciation competency. The name of this bridge is “The Jingles”. And I see the possiblity of building many bridges; that is, I know that “jingles” for any language can be designed and built!

Steve Walker

Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.