Learning English and its problems

Fehrant said:

Yeah, that is very typical, at least, from my experience with americans. English with an accent is very difficult to understand for some people. Then again, unlike other languages, English is not spoken as it is read (like in Japanese, or Spanish), therefore accent is crucial, as redudant as this may sound (because obviously all languages have their own accent).

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Perhaps this has already been answered to some people's satisfaction, but I would like to point out that everyone speaks with an accent. Many people think they have no accent, but they do. It just may be a clear one.

There is a ton of stuff available online for students to experience spoken English, whether in an entertainment venue (YouTube, movie advertisements, just as 2 examples) or in a more academic setting (for example, check out the VOA, Voice of America, news recordings, which are presented at a slower than normal speed with scripts you can choose to read along or not).

quamp said:

I'm a native speaker, but I frequently have contact with people that have Spanish as a native language. They tell me one of the harder aspects of learning English is the inconsistency of pronunciation.

Examples:
The a in hat is not pronounced the same way as the a in father.
The c in ice is not pronounced the same way as the c in cart.
The ti in tin is not pronounced the same way as the ti in action.

Others tell me silent e will trip them up once in a while. I think English is the only language where vowels can be silent.

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The number of different syllabic possibilities is staggering for the beginner, especially a person whose first language is one like Japanese where differences like L/R, S/SH, S/TH, B/V distinction are non-existent. I was speaking with a new friend/study partner just tonight, and they said that when they hear the subway stations announced on the PA system they can't tell the difference between 'Wellesley' and 'Rosedale'. Granted the voice is probably a little more muffled compared to natural face-to-face speech but still.

When I think about how it plays out in the opposite direction, that is, all the homonyms in Japanese with the elongated vowels like こう and shortened ones こっ I can begin to see the scope of the problems they experience.

I think the main thing that helps (or seems to have helped me) is just hearing the language a lot, sheer volume, so as to acquaint the mind with certain sounds and structures within context and to do so based on frequency. Trying to micro-manage and actively distinguish differences in pronunciaton during conversation (essentially isolating what you heard, void of context, and trying to decipher it) is near impossible.