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There is extensive research going back many decades that strongly implicates the role of perception in the difficulty that second language learners have with pr

by gryson 6y ago

There is extensive research going back many decades that strongly implicates the role of perception in the difficulty that second language learners have with pronunciation. Basically, learners have a tendency to hear the second language through the phonological 'filter' of the first language. They assign incoming speech sounds to categories based on the cues that are used in their first language rather than the second language, so they actually perceive the sounds in a different way from native speakers. This is a concept known as categorical perception. For example, Japanese learners of English tend to perceive English /l/ and /r/ as the same sound and cannot discriminate them reliably in perception experiments. Therefore, we can speculate that they have trouble producing the sounds differentially because they don't actually hear a difference between them. So, the first step in overcoming pronunciation issues is not necessarily to teach tongue positions, but to train perception.

Viliam1234 6y ago
A similar problem is when the other language has a sound that is very similar, but not exactly the same as in your language. For example, if the other language has the same set of wovels, except some of them sound slightly different. As a foreign learner, you are likely to pronounce (and probably also hear) it as exactly the same as in your native language. That is, just like it is difficult to distinguish between "their X" and "their Y", it is also difficult to distinguish between "your X" and "their X". Maybe even more difficult, because no one tells you that the difference exists. > For example, Japanese learners of English tend to perceive English /l/ and /r/ as the same sound and cannot discriminate them reliably in perception experiments. I wonder what would happen if you took a group of Japanese people, taught them how to make the /l/ and /r/ sounds, by telling them how to place the toungue etc., and them told one of them to choose and make one of these sounds, and the other one to guess which one it was. I mean, just like it is easier for one non-native English speaker to understand another non-native English speaker, because they speak more slowly and carefully, maybe it would be easier for one Japanese person to understand another Japanese person's pronounciation of /l/ and /r/, because it would be more exaggerated.

by gryson 6y ago

Viliam1234 6y ago

A similar problem is when the other language has a sound that is very similar, but not exactly the same as in your language. For example, if the other language has the same set of wovels, except some of them sound slightly different. As a foreign learner, you are likely to pronounce (and probably also hear) it as exactly the same as in your native language. That is, just like it is difficult to distinguish between "their X" and "their Y", it is also difficult to distinguish between "your X" and "their X". Maybe even more difficult, because no one tells you that the difference exists. > For example, Japanese learners of English tend to perceive English /l/ and /r/ as the same sound and cannot discriminate them reliably in perception experiments. I wonder what would happen if you took a group of Japanese people, taught them how to make the /l/ and /r/ sounds, by telling them how to place the toungue etc., and them told one of them to choose and make one of these sounds, and the other one to guess which one it was. I mean, just like it is easier for one non-native English speaker to understand another non-native English speaker, because they speak more slowly and carefully, maybe it would be easier for one Japanese person to understand another Japanese person's pronounciation of /l/ and /r/, because it would be more exaggerated.