Steve's YouTube Videos, 5 ways to improve your pronunciation in any language

Hi there. Today, I want to talk about pronunciation. And the reason for that is that, uh, someone brought to my attention a study that showed that people who have better pronunciation are judged more severely for their grammar errors than people who have less native-like pronunciation. You know, less native-like pronunciation. It's as if the better you pronounce the language, maybe the higher people's expectations are, or for whatever reason, it seems that you shouldn't get ahead of your level in the language by focusing too much on pronunciation before you are at sort of a level of comfort in using the language. Suits that level of pronunciation. So I want to talk a little bit more about what I consider to be the goals when we look at pronunciation in a language we're learning and some of the ways that we can improve our pronunciation in line with these goals. As usual, I did a fair amount of research on the internet and the subject of pronunciation, and a word came along that I was not aware of, hadn't heard before, called suprasegmentals. And apparently in pronunciation, people focus on the segmentals, which is the specifics of how to pronounce the guttural R or the U. Or other sounds that are sometimes difficult in a particular language. Those are the segmentals. Those are the details. Whereas the supra segmentals is more the sort of how the language comes across: the intonation, the stress, the timing, the feel that you can project. And it seems that the supra segmentals are more important than the nuts and bolts of the language. And it's not surprising to me because pronunciation is part of the whole process of acquiring a language. As we have better usage, better control over the patterns and the phrases of... The language, naturally, our timing in the language is going to be better; our intonation in the language is going to be better, and as a result, the pronunciation is going to be better. So you can't just isolate pronunciation. And to me, the goal in pronunciation, when I learn another language, my goal is that I want to be comfortable, and I want the person listening to me, typically the native speaker, to be comfortable. I don't expect of myself that I will be perfect, but I would like to feel comfortable speaking the language. I don't want to feel as if I'm making clanging errors of pronunciation. And similarly, I want the person listening to me, especially the native speaker, to feel comfortable listening to me. That doesn't mean perfection, and it doesn't mean a native-like level in the language. If we look at the issue of segmentals, this is the first point: the sort of specific sounds in a language that are difficult. These can be vowels; these can be consonants. I happen to believe that the vowels are more important. You know, I think if you can't make a guttural R in French, it doesn't matter. If you can't roll your R quite the way the Spanish do, I don't think it's so important. Uh, if you have an aspirated T or not aspirated T, if you're a German speaking English and you simply can't nail the W sound, to me, that's not so important. On the other hand, if the vowel is U, it's got to be U. If it's U, it's got to be U. So, uh, some of these, um, sounds that are not native to say to an English speaker, I think we have to make a special effort to learn them. And I remember when I was learning Chinese, I worked rather specifically on the sound like, yeah, like, and I had to force myself because it was not something that I was used to. So I think in every language, there is a small number of sounds that we can make a There aren't very many of them in each language. In Swedish, for example, there's this; I can't do it, but I'm quite comfortable in my Swedish. So we can work a little bit on some of these without being too demanding. But overall, though, we have to put greater emphasis on the intonation, the suprasegmentals, and that means a major emphasis on a sort of holistic approach to the language. And so again, this means that improving your pronunciation is going to be a matter of lots of listening and reading. Also, you know, pronunciation is connected to reading because every time we're reading, we're sub vocalizing. So we have to have some sense of how the language should be pronounced. So then this raises the question of how much explicit pronunciation instruction is useful. And there have been a number of studies on this subject, and I'll leave links in the description box. But it is not at all clear that if you have two groups of students, one group that is given a lot of listening to do without specific pronunciation instruction, and another group that's given specific pronunciation instruction, It's not obvious that those with specific pronunciation instruction do better. Now, all of these things are so subjective because there's always going to be some pronunciation instruction. There's going to be some attention to the details of how words are pronounced. Those that were given specific pronunciation instruction are also going to do a lot of listening. Motivation comes into it. So it's not black and white, but the main point is that it's not obvious that specific pronunciation instruction is tremendously important. Point number two, from my own personal experience, and I think I pronounce. I have the advantage that I have learned a number of languages. So to that extent, my brain is a little more flexible when it comes to sounds. Obviously, if you only have one language, you're kind of constrained. You're only used to those sounds, those phonemes. The more languages you learn, the more flexible you are, the better you hear different sounds in different languages, the better you can pronounce them. So I have an advantage there. However, my approach has always been lots of listening, lots of listening. And I like to combine listening with reading if I can get access. To the transcript of what I am listening to, and of course in an initial period, I listen to the mini stories where I do have a transcript. But even if I'm listening to something that I don't understand very well, I like to try to reach in there and identify phrases and words, pay attention to what I'm listening to. It's not just background noise. It's not turning on the Spanish radio while you're chatting with your friends. It's got to be a listening process where you're actually listening to the intonation of the language. You are bombarding your brain with the sounds and the intonation and the Cadence and the timing of the language. And I believe that has a tremendously beneficial effect. It doesn't mean that I'm going to pronounce the same way as you. What I hear, and, uh, I could be listening to Portuguese from Portugal and Portuguese from Brazil. And so there's definitely going to be a mixture. For example, in Sweden, where people watch television in the original language, most of the programs will be American English, but some will be British English. And, uh, the Swedes, they're typically, their pronunciation is kind of a mixture of British English and American English, uh, with, uh, the influence. Of Swedish, and that's fine too. Most Swedes, when they speak English, they're very comfortable to listen to, very easy to understand. Now, in an ideal scenario, of course, you have access to the transcript of what you're listening to. And there is a very close relationship between developing good listening skills and reading comprehension. So, the kinds of things that I do in order to learn the language, in other words, lots of listening and reading, also is beneficial for developing good pronunciation. Now, point number three, don't be too demanding. Again, there was a study that I'll leave a reference to in the description box. According to this study, people tend to give themselves credit for having better pronunciation than they actually have. Maybe that's the case. At least that was what came out of this particular study. But I think often people feel a little bit embarrassed by their own pronunciation. So I think there could be a bit of both: people who think they pronounce better than they do and other people who are more inhibited because they feel they don't pronounce that well. I think there again, the solution, the happy medium is to not expect perfection, but to try to feel comfortable in the way you speak the language. Try to focus in on natural word usage, natural phraseology, natural cadence, natural intonation, and not worry too much about whether you're able to hit that French U or U or Spanish rolled R or guttural R or whatever it might be in the different languages that you might be learning. Another hint is try to acquire some sort of natural introductory phrases. For example, I find myself in French. I'm always saying, enfin, even when I speak other languages, It gives me time to think. In Japanese, so desu ne, sore dewa ne. You know, there's all these little things that make even your moments when you are hesitating seem more natural. And I think that gives you a better cadence in the language. It's also important. And say, if you're a Japanese speaker where the verb comes at the end, you've got to make sure that you develop the habit of starting off your sentence by saying, 'I think this and that,' rather than saying, 'this, this, this, I think,' because that's all part of developing a natural cadence in the language. And that's again, an example of how the usage patterns, if you can get a good sense of the usage patterns through massive listening and reading, the pronunciation is kind of going to look after itself, in my opinion. However, I think when we are listening, we do have to try to want to pronounce better. We have to try to pay attention. You know, I mentioned the Spanish speaker. I knew who would say sword instead of sword. You know, my father who used to say shoulder instead of shoulder, and they would never change because for some reason in their mind, they would. The way a word was spelled in English should dictate how the word is pronounced. Unfortunately, in English, that's not the case. There are languages where the spelling is very consistent. Turkish was that way; Spanish is that way, but there are lots of languages where that's not the case. And we have to get used to noticing how the word is pronounced. Noticing it, not with the intention of trying to remember it, but just that we're paying attention. We have to be paying attention. If we pay attention and if we want to pronounce better, then I think We have a good chance of doing so. Again, not with the aim of trying for perfection. And this brings me to the final point, which is a little bit fuzzy. The whole approach, my approach to pronunciation is somewhat fuzzy because I think it's part of that overall process of acquiring the language. We don't necessarily need to deliberately focus a lot of our time on pronunciation. If we do all the other things that we need to do to acquire the language, we're bombarding our brain with the sounds and the words and the phrases of the language. The pronunciation, by and large, is going to come. Um, however, psychologically, I've always found it very important to try to project yourself outside of your own sort of national identity, language identity into that of the language you're trying to learn. So if I'm speaking Chinese or Japanese or French or Spanish or Russian, I try to imagine myself one of them. As long as I'm sort of inhibited or I'm reluctant to take a chance, I don't want to fall flat on my face because I tried to pretend I was a Frenchman and I didn't quite pull it off. It doesn't matter. You have to have what I've called this cultural weightlessness. You don't want to have that feeling that you are, in my case, an English speaker, attempting to speak Turkish. I'm just a person, and I'm trying to fit in with the Turks. I'm trying to project myself as a Turk. And I think that sort of attitude is an important part of breaking free of the constraints of your native language. Constraints that will always be there. You will always reflect languages that you already know, particularly your native language. You'll reflect the patterns of your native language in your word usage, but You will also reflect the patterns of your native language in terms of the sounds, the pronunciation, in terms of the intonation, the stress. That's why, you know, English speakers tend to have more, you know, stress in their French. Whereas the French tend to be more monotonous. You have to pay attention to that, that French is spoken in a more monotonous way. You have to imagine yourself a Frenchman, speak that way. And with that, the rest of the pronunciation will come. So I hope that was useful. Thank you for listening. Bye for now.