The Importance of Pronunciation in Language Learning
Channel: Alex Zorach
Date: 2018-09-14

I experienced a major breakthrough in learning foreign languages when I realized how important learning proper pronunciation was. Each language has its own phonology and phonetics, a set of sounds made into the basic structural units of the language, like building blocks.

When we learn a new language without first learning the sounds, our brain will continually force anything we hear (or try to learn) into our existing categories of sounds based on our native language, as well as other languages we may have learned.

This creates a series of problems, including (1) mishearing words (2) not being able to be understood by native speakers when we speak (3) inability to connect learning from books, classroom, or self-study with real-world usage, and (4) linguistic interference, especially between related languages.

By mastering pronunication early on, we address all these problems. In this video I recommend an approach mimicking the way young children learn languages: first exposing ourselves to the soundscape of the language for a period of months, then followed by trying to make the sounds ourselves. I recommend a combination of listening, experimentation and practice, reading and watching tutorials on pronunciation, and, perhaps most importantly of all, face-to-face conversations with native speakers to give you feedback on how your pronunciation sounds (as well as to make sure you are actually able to understand them when they speak.)

I hope this insight can help others as much as it has helped me!