English is my third language and resent it very much.
You're looking at it wrong. English is the closest thing we have to a human lingua franca. I hope you're not bashing it for nationalistic reasons, because, even if it owes its ubiquity to an imperialist past, English today is the property of its non-colonial speakers as much as its native speakers.
You will appreciate this oddball pseudo-germanic, latin-esque language when you venture out of its home turf: I tutored English to Arab students who were learning it to communicate with Chinese manufacturers, and a Vietnamese musician who wanted to reply to his Myspace fans, including a Thai girl who has a crush on him :-D
IME, it's phonology that has been the most pain, not syntax. I think English as a second language students my just benefit from singing lessons, to make them more conscious of their voice and its production. Once you can hack your voice, you will be able to hear better, and then pronounce better.
Definitely. It's not uncommon when singing to intentionally "mispronounce" certain words to make them more intelligible to the audience. I would think that that skill alone would help without even getting into the tonal aspects.
You're looking at it wrong. English is the closest thing we have to a human lingua franca. I hope you're not bashing it for nationalistic reasons, because, even if it owes its ubiquity to an imperialist past, English today is the property of its non-colonial speakers as much as its native speakers.
You will appreciate this oddball pseudo-germanic, latin-esque language when you venture out of its home turf: I tutored English to Arab students who were learning it to communicate with Chinese manufacturers, and a Vietnamese musician who wanted to reply to his Myspace fans, including a Thai girl who has a crush on him :-D