I’ve been asked to tutor a very bright six-year-old boy in his schoolwork, mainly because he has trouble focusing.
James’s maternal grandma is from Yunnan in S.W.China, and has been learning English with me on and off. James was born here in London, has an English father, goes to an English school, has English friends, doesn’t speak that much Chinese, yet bizarrely pronounces some of his English words just like his maternal grandma.
Grandma will consistently do the Italian insert-a-vowel-after-a-consonant thing, so “did” comes out as “didda”, “bought” as “boughta”, etc. James does that too, though not on the same scale.
Grandma pronounces “sport” as “si-port”, “spring” as “si-pring”. Ditto James.
Yet grandma doesn’t really speak much to him on the phone as her English is still hardly good enough to make sense (although she’s been gaining confidence and trying harder and more often), so it can’t be that.
It was grandma who’d recommended me for the tutoring, saying to James’s mother, “I know the very person who can discipline him!” So, I’ve been reporting back to her on James's progress (his marks have improved at school).
On the subject of his English pronunciation being just like hers, I offered this explanation: “I’d heard that genes skip a generation, so it must be that!”
PS: (from googling) “...the expression or manifestation of genes — traits — can skip generations under some circumstances.”
(Beijing / London, 2022)
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