Why Indonesians have difficulty with English

[Herb Stahlke]

There's a Reuters article dated 10/17/2003 reporting Korean parents
having the membrane under their children's tongues slit so that they
can speak English without a Korean accent.  I have a copy on line but
unfortunately not a link.  Here's the first paragraph:

"Chop a centimeter or so off your tongue and become a fluent English
speaker. That is the hope that recently drove one mother to take her
six-year-old son for surgery aimed at ridding him of his Korean accent
when speaking the language of choice in global business."

I think I can email individuals a copy, but copyright prevents me from
pasting the whole article into a listserv message.

Herb



On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Grant Barrett
<gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
> Subject:      Why Indonesians have difficulty with English
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In an muddled opinion piece about English-learning in Indonesia is
> this gem:
>
> "Indonesians reportedly have different length of tongue and other
> organs in oral cavities from other people in the UK or the US who
> speak English. This might be true, as well as hilarious, but the fact
> is that people coming to the US, for example, can communicate well
> without having to pronounce English like Sam in the Transformers movie
> or Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
>
> http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/26/revisiting-globalization-english.html
>
> Grant Barrett
> grantbarrett at gmail.com
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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