How Mother Tongue Influence Destroys Your Confidence

If you are thinking, ‘Is that even a thing?’, well, yes, MTI is actually quite a commonly prevailing problem. So, how does one recognize Mother Tongue Influence?

If you can guess where a person is from by the way they speak English, or any other second language for that matter, then, you have just found a case of heavy MTI! For example, Sid wants to buy an ‘escale’ for his drawing kit.

Rishitha says she lives in ‘Kanedda’ and she wants to be a ‘esuuper mawdel’. Ratan Singh wants to win the university elections; it’s basically a ruse to win the approval of the ‘garl of hiz drimz.’

These are classic examples of MTI.

Why is MTI dangerous for your confidence?

You climb on to a stage to give a speech before native English speakers. You know your speech is going to sound funny and it’s not going to do you any favors. You might even become the laughing stock!

So now, you walk onto the stage with almost a disheartened spirit and if your speech was going to be at a 60, it drops down to a score of 30 on a scale of 100! MTI has beat you.

So, why does this happen?

Well, the confidence part is quite clear. You know that as a speaker you are going to sound different than it should and that destroys your confidence.

The reason it sounds different is because every language has its own script, sounds and words. So, there are some sounds that you would find in Hindi, but not in Tamil; some sounds you would find in Malayalam, but not in Bengali. And English of course, is not from this part of the world and hence it sounds very different.

So, when we begin to speak English, or any second language, we tend to bring in sounds from our mother tongue. This because our brain, while making new memories, associates the new stimulus with something it already knows. So, when you learn something new, you are actually associating the idea of the new thing with something you already know.

Let’s see what makes MTI persist –

• Not speaking the second language often.
• Not hearing native speakers speak.
• Not correcting yourself when you make the mistake.

The solution

Very simple. Open your laptop, open YouTube and listen to speeches from famous native speakers. The more you hear, the more your brain will register the sounds. If you hear it sufficiently enough, you would actually begin to speak in the same manner unconsciously.

However, people seldom hear native speakers speak that many number of times. So, it would be best if you practice speaking and as they say, practice makes man perfect! You don’t need to speak in their accent, but you do need to understand the specific sounds of each word and just practice that. Soon, you will surprise yourself with your proficiency!

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