4 Reasons to Improve Pronunciation

1.  Improving your pronunciation leads to better comprehension for the speaker and the listener.

It’s obvious that better pronunciation helps the listener understand what the speaker is saying.  Less obvious is the fact that you (the speaker) will also improve your own comprehension ability by developing better pronunciation.  A learner of English could quite easily have mastered the grammar, know 10 or 20 thousand words, and be able to write essays and read novels in English without using a dictionary.

SEE ALSO: Best Ways to Improve English Pronunciation

However, the same person could get off a plane in an English-speaking country and not understand a single word people were saying.  This would be because the learner had not taken the time to study the sounds of English, to become more familiar with them, and to practice them.  Part of the study of pronunciation is learning to make distinctions between the different sounds of the language.

Let’s consider the words “ship” and “sheep.” A Spanish speaker who has just started studying English might be familiar with these two words in their written form, but might not be able to hear the difference between their respective vowel sounds; the two words would sound the same (or at least very similar), and this could lead to confusion.  This is because Spanish speakers don’t make a distinction between the vowel sounds [ i ] and [ ɪ ].

All students of English face this same type of problem.  The particular sounds involved vary depending on the learner’s first language, but the effects are the same.

Without a good understanding of the sound structure of English, a learner finds that the words blur together and become incomprehensible.  It is therefore very important to be able to hear the various contrasts between the sounds of English, and this can be done through the study of pronunciation.

2.  Language attitudes and prejudice

The study revealed that people with British accents were more likely to be considered guilty of a white-collar crime, while Australians were more likely to be considered guilty of physical violence.  This is hardly surprising, and there isn’t much need to state the unfortunate fact that people are often victims of prejudice because of the way they speak.

This sort of prejudice is not confined to people on trial for fraud or assault; it can also occur in more mundane contexts such as job interviews.  People with strong foreign accents might be viewed as incapable of effective written and verbal communication, which is important in the workplace these days.

Now, of course, it’s unfair to immediately assume that a person with an accent has poor command of the language; some people with thick accents speak grammatically flawless English spiced up with idioms and colloquial language.  The problem is that not everyone is going get the benefit of the doubt.  As unfair as it is, prejudice will probably exist as long as humans do.  It is therefore important that students of English reduce their accents as much as possible.  Nobody expects absolute perfection, but learners should improve pronunciation if they want to avoid prejudice and be judged only according to their merits.

3.  Lose your fear of speaking English and build confidence through pronunciation practice.

Fear and shyness are important factors that affect second-language acquisition.  These are psychological factors that indirectly influence the performance of learners.  Learners who sit in their armchairs studying grammar all day do not learn as fast as people who only occasionally study grammar but go out on the town and speak the language.  Unfortunately, some learners have a hard time going out and using the language in real contexts.  Much of this has to do with the fear of making a mistake or being ridiculed.  Practicing pronunciation in a comfortable, non-threatening environment is a way to overcome the fear of speaking.  This will ultimately help one to learn the language much faster, and since half the language books sold in bookstores have the phrase fast and easy printed on the cover, it’s reasonable to conclude that most people want to learn as quickly as possible.

4.  Sounds make up words, and words make up sentences.

Babies begin practicing the sounds of the language around them by babbling.  When infants make utterances such as ba-ba-ba-la-la-la, they are actually practicing their pronunciation, and this process continues for months.  This phenomenon is no accident.  Words are made up of individual sounds, and sentences are made up of individual words, and since there can’t be words without sounds, children have to get familiar with the sounds first.  This might seem obvious, but it’s frequently overlooked by adult learners.  These different tiers of structure reflect something about the way our minds store information.  The first tier has sounds, the second has words, and it goes up from there.  These systems are interconnected, and although it might not be readily apparent, neglecting pronunciation skills could have a negative impact on the higher tiers.  This could even affect something as simple as memorizing vocabulary – If the learner doesn’t know the sounds very well, it might be harder to remember certain words.

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