Your Name ____________________________________________________________
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS WORKSHEET (2 pages)
Directions: Fill in the blank with the correct answer or highlight/underline the correct choice
for each item.
1.Language of Investigation ___Spanish________________________________
2. What places of origin (countries, regions, cities) is this language primarily spoken? _
Central and South America and Spain
3. This closest/ most similar language to this language is ____Portuguese__________________
4. How many speakers are there globally of this language?_417 Million Speakers Worldwide_______
Alphabet
5. This language has which type of alphabet?
a. Latin (every sign has a single sound)
b. Syllabic (every sign represents a whole syllable)
c. Logographic (each sign represents and entire word)
6. This language reads in which directions:
a. LEFT to RIGHT, UP to DOWN
b. RIGHT to LEFT, DOWN to UP
c. RIGHT to LEFT, UP to DOWN
d. LEFT to RIGHT, DOWN to UP
7. The letters/ characters of this alphabet are of which language family?
a. Indo-European
b. Sino-Tibetan
c. Semitic
d. Bantu
e. Uralic
f. Dravidian
g. Austonesian
h. Altic
8. Does this language depend primarily on tone or pitch?
a. Yes
b. No
9. Is this language syllable or stress timed?
a. Syllable timed
b. Stress timed
10. Does this language have strong sound/symbol correspondence? (English does not)
a. Yes
b. No
Directions: Complete this section ONLY if your language is Latin based (most languages you
will encounter are).
Phonetics and phonology
11. There are _5____ vowels in this language.
12. They are (cut and paste the vowels in the actual script) _a, e, i, o and u___________.
13. Which vowels sound the same as English vowel sounds? (list L1 vowel and English vowel
correspondence). __a, e, I, o and u _________________
14. Which vowel sounds do not exist in English? ____None________
15. There are ___24_______ consonants in this language.
16. They are (cut and paste the consonants of the actual script) a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l,
ll, m, n, Ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z __________________.
17. Which consonant sounds do NOT exist in English?_ch, ll, Ñ ___________________.
18. What sounds do speakers of this language have difficulty pronouncing?__c, g, r, y__________
19. Are there any sound placements that are different between English and this language?
20. What are they? (For example, ____c, g, r, y___________________
21. Do any double letter combinations exist in this language? __yes_______
22. What are they and what do they correspond to in English? (For example, Spanish: /ll/ =
English /y/). _ch=k , ll= y, __________________
Syntax and Grammar
22. How many tenses exist in this language?___4________
23. What are they? Present, Future, Imperfect, Past Tense
24. The word order of this language is
a. Verb, subject, object (VSO)
b. Subject, verb, object (SVO)
c. Object, verb, subject (OVS)
d. Verb, object, subject (VOS)
e. Subject, object, verb (SOV)
f. Lacks a dominant word order
25 What are the punctuation forms used in this language? List using English comparisons.
__They use all of the same puncutuation as in English but when they use a question mark an upside
down question mark goes at the beginning of the question and then a regular question mark goes at
the end.____________
26. How does this language mark gender? ___In Spanish people and all objects have a
gender.________________________________________________________________________
Morphology
27. What are some shared cognates between English and this language? _There are thousands of
cognates between English and Spanish. These words usually have Latin or Greek origins. _____
28. What are some FALSE cognates between English and this language? ___Discussion, Nude,
Table, Actual, Advertisement. _____________________________________________
29. Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of speakers of this
language learning English? Please provide specific examples.__There are certain phrases that we
use in English that do not translate right into Spanish so it becomes very confusing for them. For
example: where’s my pencil? It also becomes hard when they are spelling because some of our
words have double letters but it is the same letter twice, in Spanish the double letters are actual
letters of the alphabet. __________________________________________________
30. If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be the most
important thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between their language and
English?___I think that it would be important to teach them that each word does not have a gender
and a tense. As they are learning some words and phrases are not going to make sense just because
there is no way translation for the word in Spanish. First things first they need to understand that in
our alphabet is a little different than there’s because we use double letters when we spell but they are
not there is not an individual letter in our alphabet for double letters. A lot of words in Spanish words
are spelt the way that they sound whereas in English there are many words that contain letters in a
word that you do not hear. The stress of a word in a sentence can change the meaning depending
upon what you are trying to say. Another complication could be when they are trying to create or
understand a question. Synonyms may also be confusing when they are trying to choose the right
word and then there are three different spellings and meanings of the same word. Support the
children as they are learning English they are going through a lot there, it is a whole new life, new
country, new house and they are trying to adapt to all of this at once. ____________