Yeah, I totally agree about exaggeration, but I think it can also have a positive impact on learning the language. A big issue I see with non-native speakers of

Yeah, I totally agree about exaggeration, but I think it can also have a positive impact on learning the language. A big issue I see with non-native speakers of languages I know is that they stick to the comfortable sounds of their native language, approximating the foreign sounds instead of trying to really imitate them. If you haven’t done it before, it feels ridiculous to try to put on what feels like such an exaggerated “fake” accent. But what you’re doing is getting a handle on the phonetics, which increases your ability to recognise and distinguish those sounds when listening, and be easier to understand when speaking. It also helps you cope with phonetic variations and different accents, which may at first sound totally different from the “standard” language you learned—but if you understand the phonemes as a native speaker thinks about them, your comprehension will be much more resilient and adaptable.