If you want to learn a foreign language well, there is a crucial element that you must tackle upfront: Pronunciation.
Yes, as unsexy as that sounds, dedicating the time necessary to learn how to pronounce a foreign language correctly will make the rest of your language-learning journey, not just easier, but also much more enjoyable.

I get it, though. Most people would rather jump into speaking immediately—learning how to order a beer, swear, discuss the latest hot topic, or ask someone out to dinner. Those exercises on listening and repeating sounds in order to pronounce well without actually learning how to say anything useful are often deemed a waste of time.

There is another school of thought where people believe that good pronunciation doesn’t really matter. Who cares? I’m a foreigner and I’ll always have an accent.

But there is a difference between having an accent and being intelligible and it is the latter that we must aim for. A foreign accent, in any language, can be charming. An indecipherable accent is not; it is actually the opposite—it can be off-putting and make people uncomfortable, leading them to avoid speaking with you.

Key takeaway here: A bit of upfront work to master the pronunciation of a foreign language is time well spent and can actually be—dare I say it—fun.

Becoming a Copycat: Reframing the Objective

To learn how to pronounce a language well, you must first change the way you think about what you are trying to do. Instead of thinking that you must learn pronunciation, instead frame it this way: I must learn to MIMIC the way native speakers speak their language.

So what is the difference here?

Mimic is an action verb that sparks more consideration and effort. If I tell someone to mimic the way I say something and do it with all their being, they will adjust their voice, tone, and maybe even their body and posture to replicate how I just said it. Mimicking therefore conjures up a form of extreme imitation to sound just like the person you are mimicking.

But, if I tell that same person to pronounce a new word in a language they don’t know, they will most likely try to say it using their normal voice and tone without changing anything about the way they speak normally. That is, they will simply try to say the word or the sentence as if they were speaking their own language.

And pronouncing foreign words as if they were mere variations of our native language is where the big problem lies.

Of course, the word mimic can have negative connotations too. In fact, the first definition that shows up online states that to mimic is “to imitate, especially in order to entertain or ridicule.” But of course our aim in language pronunciation is not to make fun of native speakers but rather to try and sound like them when we speak their language.

If you think about it, we’ve all mimicked someone or something before, whether it was to impersonate someone we know, pretend to be an actor in a movie to act out a scene, or to put on the voice of our child’s favorite cartoon character to make them laugh (I do a great Gru, for example, that has my nieces and nephews in stitches). The point is we’ve all, at one time or another, changed our way of speaking to sound like someone else. This is exactly what we need to do to learn to pronounce a foreign language.

Now, I get it. If it were that simple, we’d all be able to mimic our way to perfect pronunciation in any language on earth. But that isn’t the case. The difficulties come when there are sounds you’re not used to and that you simply can’t get your mouth to perform correctly.

Remember, mimicry is the action you are performing when you practice pronunciation. The following techniques are methods you can apply to tackle the difficulties you will face thus allowing you to better mimic a native speaker’s pronunciation.

Six Effective Techniques to Improve Your Pronunciation

Listen to the language as much as possible:

This may seem to be an obvious one, but many people are so eager to jump into speaking that they do not spend enough time actually listening to the language they want to learn.

Your mind must get used to the sounds of the language you are learning before it can begin to categorize them, distinguish them from sounds in your own language, and then push you toward pronouncing them correctly on your own.

During your learning journey, listen to real life language as much as possible. This is easily done by tuning into news programs, talk shows, or podcasts in the language on a daily basis. Keep them on in the background while you’re doing other things, but be sure to take a few moments each day to consciously listen as well.

The point is that the more you actually hear the language spoken by native speakers, the less your brain will reject the foreignness of it all. The sounds will begin to feel natural, making it much easier to pronounce them correctly.

Practice focussed listening exercises:

One of the difficulties in pronunciation is that we often cannot hear the subtleties of many sounds, or in some cases, hear the sounds at all. When that happens, we often skip over them or simply pronounce them as if they were equivalent to sounds in our native language.

If we can’t truly distinguish important sounds in a language and how they are spoken, we certainly won’t be able to pronounce them. Therefore, we must train our brains to hear them properly.

To do this we, can apply a focussed listening exercise by doing the following:

• Identify the sound you need to train yourself to hear. Focus on one sound at a time.
• Choose a source for authentic audio practice, such as digital radio, podcasts, etc. Use audio only for this exercise and avoid watching videos since video imagery can distract from the spoken language. This exercise is all about listening.
• Close your eyes and listen for the sound you are trying to master as the language comes rushing at you. Listening intensively can be difficult, so do this in spurts of a few minutes at a time. All sounds of any given language will present themselves constantly in normal speech.
• Note down when you think you hear the sound. This exercise is not about vocabulary or understanding; it is about sound recognition.
• When you do hear the sound, try pronouncing it as the speaker does.
• Continue to practice focussed listening until you can consistently hear and identify the sound that gives you trouble.

Not everyone needs this type of practice. If you can hear the sounds and the subtleties between them but just can’t produce those sounds, then move on to the next exercise.

Read over the sound descriptions and repeat, repeat, repeat:

Most language-learning materials include written explanations about the sounds of the language and provide tips for pronunciation. Depending on the language you are learning, these explanations can become quite complicated, especially if there are many sounds not present in your native language.

Read through those explanations, then listen to the sound they describe. Try to hear exactly what it is they are describing as you listen to the sound, and then try to repeat the sound out loud. This can be difficult at first, but continue to listen and focus on what your material is telling you and repeat until you think you can do it well.

The important point here is repetition. Continue to pronounce the sound multiple times until your mouth gets used to producing it. Once it has, you’ve got it.

Quick point here: Focus only on those sounds that are difficult for you. Don’t waste your time on sounds that you have no problem pronouncing.

Pronounce full words and sentences: focussed repetition:

Although we’ve been discussing individual sounds, the truth is that these sounds are rarely produced in isolation. Instead they are produced within words and full sentences, and that, my friend, is a whole different ballgame.

What you must do then is take full sentences, listen to them spoken (preferably at a natural pace), and repeat them multiple times until you can say and pronounce them as closely to the native speaker as possible.

We call this focussed repetition, and it goes like this:

• Listen to a native speaker say a full sentence. You can follow along with written text if it is available.
• Repeat the full sentence, trying to pronounce it just as the native speaker does.
• Continue to do this until you can say the sentence at a relatively quick pace without tripping over any sounds.
• If necessary, break up the sentence into chunks and focus on those smaller pieces before putting them together again to say the entire sentence.
• While performing this exercise focus on the sounds, rhythm, and cadence of the language as you listen and repeat.
• Continue to do this with at least 50 good-sized sentences. Once you are able to say at least 50 sentences quickly and with decent pronunciation, you’ll find your level has taken a big leap forward.

If you just read through the above instructions and thought, “Wait a minute…this is a simple listen-and-repeat exercise,” you’d be correct. Listening and repeating, no matter how out of fashion that sounds, is the basis for any language learning technique.

Record yourself:

This is a simple technique, but the effects are amazing.

Record yourself as you practice repeating sounds, words, full sentences, or paragraphs. Then listen to your recording and compare it to the recording of the native speaker.

Take note of any areas where you are not pronouncing words as the native speaker does and practice those specific moments.

Listening to yourself is a powerful tool and unfortunately one that is underutilized. Given that we can pick up our phones and record ourselves anytime, this technique should be more often applied by those struggling with their pronunciation.

We often think we are pronouncing better than we actually are, so recording ourselves helps us become aware of where we need to improve. Think about that time you thought you were hitting all the notes in your favorite song, only to later see the video of yourself on your friend’s phone…Yikes! Oh wait, maybe that was just me.

Pretend to be Someone Else:

This may sound odd, but it can be very effective.

If you think of yourself as an actor, it becomes easier to adopt a different persona and, consequently, a different voice, accent, tone, or mannerisms. This aligns with the importance of mimicking, as we discussed earlier.

Essentially, you are stepping out of the you that you know and stepping into the character of a “native speaker” of the language you are learning.

Once you begin to see yourself as a member of that language community—even if you are just pretending or acting—it becomes easier to speak as others do..

Pick a person’s voice that you like in the language you are learning (an actor, a reporter, a Youtuber, an influencer, etc.) and try to become that person—imitating their way of speaking and adopting their mannerisms..

If you’re a geek like me, you’ll enjoy this.

And over to you…

Pronunciation is tricky, so don’t beat yourself up if you find it difficult. From the beginning of your life, your brain was programmed to recognize the sound patterns of your native language, and your vocal organs were trained to produce those sounds. Introducing a completely new sound system takes time and effort.

Apply the methods above and keep practicing. If you have any comments or ideas on how to improve pronunciation, please share them in the comments section below.

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