🔑 Mindset - The Unlock to Pronunciation Skill Progress
Learning A Different Pronunciation Is Similar To Learning a New Language
Learning to change your pronunciation is a hard thing to do.
It. Is. Hard.
There are a variety of reasons why it is challenging to successfully do and to some degree, I think it can be harder than actually learning a new language.
Let me explain (Cause I know my opinion may be controversial and needs further elaboration).
What Is Speech?
Speech is the end result of highly coordinated tongue, mouth, vocal cord and breath control. For the sake of argument, let's ignore palatal lift, resonance, and any other technical considerations (for you advanced readers).
In it's simplest form, We've got a source of energy, some sort of vibratory source, and a change in the shape of the instrument that impacts the resultant audio signal.
For a flute, we've got a person blowing air. The mouth placement along the instrument causes a vibratory air stream and the flutist's finger placement along the holes in the instrument changes the instrument's resonant cavity within.
For a guitar, we've got kinetic energy from the guitarist's strumming. Based on the finger placement along the guitar strings, the resultant vibratory string sound reverberates within the the hollow guitar body.
So, unless are missing certain biological components, like a piece of your tongue, missing your upper front teeth, have a cleft palate (where the roof of your mouth didn't fully form), you have the needed body parts to make English speech sounds.
Is Learning English Pronunciation Impossible?
Let's keep it simple. Is learning English pronunciation impossible?
No. It's not.
It isn't a never previously achieved thing that no one knows how to accomplish.
There are people who have done it to varying degrees of success.
It can be achieved and has been achieved by other people before....a.k.a. not impossible
So How Exactly Is English Different From Your Native Language?
English is different from other languages in that the speech patterns and coordinated movements are different. Similar to how you use the same hands and legs to play basketball versus hockey, the muscle memory and motor control patterns are different - but you use the same 2 legs and 2 arms to play each sport.
We are learning to build new habits and patterns of mouth movements. Or in the case of people who already speak some English, re-wiring your currently implemented English speaking habits.
I'm going to spend some time to flush out explicitly why I think English may differ from learning the pronunciation in other languages. I'll update the link here so you can read it too once it's done.
The bottom line is you encountered your native language first instead of English and you shouldn't interpret that as English being a harder language to learn or that you are incapable of doing it.
Think of it like this.
In the game Pokemon, you don't lament how you were able to catch a caterpie faster than a geodude. It simply happened because you were exposed to caterpie before you werre exposed to geodude. If we extend this metaphor further, it would be reasonable to expect that you as a pokemon trainer could take care of caterpie, feed it, know how ot take care of it more easily than a geodude caught laterr on in your journey. Maybe when you first caught your geodude, you tried to feed it the same foods you feed your caterpie (because you have experience taking care of the caterpie and tried to apply caterpie care principles to geodude care).
Same thing applies to speech. Speech is nothing more than a pattern of mouth movements that is learned and is based on your individual language exposure.
The only reason I learned English first whereas you may have learned a different language first is your personal experience and exposure. I was born in Canada where the primary language is English and French.
Mindset Is So Important For Overcoming These Grand Goals
So, if we now understand that there isn't something biologically wrong, there's no "special capability of the select few to learn English speech patterns versus Spanish speech patterns, then we can isolate the primary difference between people who acquire English pronunciation versus those who do not acquire English pronunciation as related to their speech production practices.
What do they do differently? And how do we apply those skills and habits for ourselves.
Perhaps there's a difference in studying method?
Perhaps there's a difference in type and latency of feedback?
Perhaps there's a difference in intensity of practice?
Regardless of the reason, I think we can acknowledge without knowing more, that English is complicated. There is power in acknowledging this fact and appreciating the journey.
Be patient with yourself. Forgive yourself for having trouble learning a specific speech sound. It is a hard language to learn and it is 100% okay to not get everything right away.
Once again, it's not because there's anything innately wrong with us. It simply means our learned speech patterns are different from native English speakers. It also means that we hold strong associations to our pre-existing speech patterns (which makes sense if we primarily speak this other language and don't already have experience switching between languages and their relative speech patterns).
So, it is important to understand and be patient and forgive yourself if you have trouble learning a speech sound. It requires dedication and practice to break a habit and learn a new habit routine in replacement.
Speaking Is Underated
Furthermore, there is a lack of appreciation for the complexity of speaking as no one ever truly takes the time to break it down. We all just do it so effortlessly. We don't think about the individual components of speech that our bodies miraculously and seamlessly do.
It is only fully appreciated when you need to learn it again (when speaking a new or different language as well as when you have lost the ability to speak like after a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or any other type of impairment that may impact the muscles involved or the neuro-muscular communication needed for coordination).
Let me explian.
The human body can do amazing things so effortlessly. But they never started out that way. Only over time has our bodies perfected or optimized these process to the point that they become automatic.
Consider your ability to jump.
What happens when you jump. You bend your legs, you swing your arms, your centre of gravity lowers, and you stabilize your core. Your legs extend, you explode upward in force, your arms swing forward and up to carry your momentum and your core remains tight. As you track your landing, you introduce a slight bend in your legs and upon landing, you bend your legs further to absorb the impact. As you land, your arms come back to neutral position and your core remains engaged so your centre of gravity does not carry too far forward.
And we do that without a conscious coordination of those individual acts.
We became so accustomed to that, that instead we added in the hand-eye coordination required for tracking a ball in sports such has volleyball or basketball which further increase the complexity. Now we're tracking a target with our head, maneuvering in 3D space around hands, arms and bodies, bracing for collisions mid air (with a ball, with a body).
And again, it can feel and seem so effortless.
Now, consider your ability to speak.
You are coordinating your breath (the air which is the driving fuel of your voice), your vocal cords coming together to tense like guitar strings to produce sound, and you mold the resonance chambers of your mouth accordingly to produce meaningful variation in the sound. Your mouth and throat are the instrument that shapes the subsequent sound and it constantly changes with the jaw opening, tongue position, allowance of air out of your nose or not to shape that sound into meaningful distinctions.
And the margin of error is even less with speech as compared with more full-body compound movements. With speech, the difference between two distinct sounds can be millimeters in difference.
A Shift In Expectation and Mindset May Be the Unlock For You
So what does it all mean?
It means that you need to adjust your expectations of what you are aspiring to do and what an appropriate timeline for achieving it will be.
What you are aspiring to do is change a habit — readjust an automatic process and do so reliably and consistently, and also do it amidst a bunch of other complex movements (that are necessary for adjacent speech sounds)
It will take a while.
It will take patience.
It will take repeated trials.
When you decide to start your journey of accent modification or English pronunciation, you may successfully generate the correct sound after your first day practicing.
That's fantastic!
The issue is the consistency or reliability of your sound generation.
I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I think that when your expectations are not grounded on realistic timelines, it can become inadvertently disheartening when you don't meet your goals. If you constantly do not meet the expectations you arbitrarily assigned, then you can be setting yourself up for disappointment.
It would be the same as me proclaiming I will make $1 million in 2 years when I'm still making less than $100k. It is much less reasonable to think I will make 10x my salary in 1-2 years, especially if I am not putting extreme amounts of effort into my growth. Now, that isn't to say that it isn't possible, but that the work ethic to accomplish that feat would need to be remarkable.
So let's check. Do you feel like you are putting in the necessary amount of work to accomplishing such a remarkable feat?
The positive thing to consider though, is that the speech pattern or position is something you can learn over time. It isn't impossible for you to do but it will require some experimentation and self-discovery.
You can read all about the mouth positions and most effective tips and techniques to accurately but it will come down to you actually doing the work and making the sounds.
Kinda like push ups.
You can read about all the techniques, all the tips, all the pitfalls of other people. But the bottom line is that you will need to do the pushups if you want to get better at pushups and build muscle.
The second thing to consider (and I will delve into this in another blog) would be the principle of diminishing returns with speech production as it pertains to English communication because effective English communication is more than simply English speech sounds.
So if you are on this journey to improving your English pronunciation, buckle up and enjoy the ride. It'll take a while but the gratification of learning and the nuances of communication will ultimately make you a stronger communicator.
What you can start doing today is review your expectations. Have you been putting in the work needed to achieve your speech goals in the time frame that you wish?
If not, re calibrate them. You’ll be much more realistic, have a better frame of mind, develop the persistence needed for this life-long pursuit.
