4 ways English pronunciation is difficult and confusing

English, being the Lingua Franca of the world, has huge importance in the context of the current globalized world. It is the language of science, technology, and education. Besides, it has assumed ever more importance owing to the internationalization of the labor market.

Because of this, people from different backgrounds regularly seek to learn English. However, learning English with accurate pronunciation is a demanding task as language learners face different problems in learning English pronunciation thanks to the complex phonological nature of the English language. Here are some of the difficulties faced by English language learners in mastering English pronunciation:

1. Arbitrary relationship between English orthography and pronunciation

One of the things that will strike you when you start learning English is the difference between English writing and speaking. That is, you don’t speak English in the same way as you write it. This is due to the arbitrary relationship between words/letters and sounds. Why do “give” and “five” have different vowels? Why is there a “b” in “subtle”, “debt”, and “doubt” if there is no /b/ sound? Spoiler alert, these are all due to historical evolution and random human intervention without a centralized linguistic authority updating English spelling. But even knowing this is no relief to an English learner who still has to learn the arbitrary spelling system of English.

2. Neutralized vowels

The second most important difficulty faced by English language learners is the neutralization of vowel sounds. Vowel neutralization is a type of vowel reduction where different pronounced vowels are not only reduced in complexity, but also become identical to other vowels. Because of this, English learners might not be able to tell the words’ spelling from its pronunciation, and might not be able to pronounce it natively either.

For instance, the “a” in dangerous /ˈdeɪndʒərəs/ is the stressed and produces the /eɪ/ sound while the vowel “e” and the diphthong “ou” are neutralized and pronounced identically as /ə/ because they are unstressed. English learners don’t always understand vowel reduction or neutralization which leads to non-native accents, or worse, incomprehensible pronunciation.

3. English vowel sounds

Compared to other languages, English has a lot of vowel sounds (15 or more!). Vowels are tricky as they are because they are created by the tongue essentially hanging in space without touching any identifiable part of the mouth. I.e. It’s much easier to tell that you’re pronouncing the “th” sound right because you can feel that your tongue is between your teeth than it is to tell if you’re pronouncing the /ʌ/ sound correctly by having your tongue hanging a certain amount of distance from the back of the mouth but not too back and not too low. In addition, different varieties of English (Chicago English, Scottish English, Canadian English) also change all of these vowels around slightly and can be an additional confusing factor for English learners.

4. Allophonic variation

Finally, learners also faced the problems of allophonic variation. What are allophones? Allophones are the slightly different physical productions of sounds. For example, in American English, the /t/ in “topping” is different from the /t/ in “potting”, where the first sounds like an actual [t] sound, whereas the second is more like a [d] sound.

Allophonic variation is a result of phonology, the sound system of the language which systematically governs how sounds are pronounced. Allophonic variation of sounds exists in every language, including your own native language, however phonology is rarely taught in language classes in school, and if it is taught, only small parts of it are taught. One more transparent example of allophonic variation is in English that is sometimes, but not always, taught in schools is the pronunciation of “-ed” as either [d] in words like “tabbed” or [t] in words like “tapped”. The mastery of allophonic variation usually is key in improving your accent and is usually the next step for most students after they master comprehensible pronunciation.

Complete English Pronunciation

Because of this, it may be difficult for learners of English to get started on improving their pronunciation and eventually their accent. With all these variations in sounds and arbitrary spelling rules, you might feel lost as to how to start. If only there were a a structured, organized roadmap for you to follow…

Luckily for you I’ve spent the last year creating and perfecting a video course covering every sound in the English language with instructional videos on how to pronounce them, exercises to practice them, and audio recordings to check your pronunciation against. It is the culmination of years of helping and helping hundreds of students improve their English pronunciation and American accent all condensed into one step-by-step course. Check it out now and get started on sounding the way you want to sound!