A lot of people think that as adults they can’t learn a new language, or that they can’t learn it as well as a child can.  And a lot of adults would like to learn a language for reasons as varied as needing it for business or travel, for personal enrichment, and because research shows that learning another language is one of the best ways to keep your brain working well.  The good news is that adults can learn new languages, and they can do it as well as children, given the right learning conditions.  Watch the this video, Adults Learn Language Better Than Children, to learn more about this topic.

English is such a difficult language! So many rules, and so many exceptions to every rule. How anyone trying to learn the language could possibly remember even half the rules and exceptions is beyond me. Trying to memorize and master the rules makes learning so tedious and frustrating. Plus, that’s not how to learn a language.

In this second of a series of posts about pronunciation, I will be talking more about pronouncing the sounds of English. I don’t mean, at least at this time, the sounds of the letters, or where you place stress in a word. I mean the basic sound of the entire spoken language. I talked about this in the last post, and want to continue here. I’m talking about the point of articulation and point of resonance that makes the sound of the words.

The Point of Resonance in English

As you may recall from my last post,  in English, the point of articulation and resonance is in the middle of the mouth. English is spoken from a kind of a hollow in the middle of the mouth, the tongue most often bounces off the gums above the front teeth, and the lips, jaws, and corners of the mouth remain relatively relaxed, at least as compared to many other languages. In order to improve your English accent, your mouth must be in the correct position. The best way to learn the correct position is to imitate the English accent of someone speaking your own native language.

Getting Your Mouth In Position

At first, when you get your mouth in the correct position, your jaw, lip and tongue muscles will no doubt feel tight and tired. Keep practicing, though, until it becomes natural and instinctive when speaking English. This is really important. You cannot make the sounds that are exclusive to any language without having your mouth in the right position. An example of this is English speakers trying to roll their r’s. Unless we tense our tongues, lips and corners of the mouth, we cannot speak forward in our mouths enough to make the rolling sound. It just won’t work. Just try to roll an r sound with the point of articulation being in the center of the mouth. That’s why you laugh at us!

German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Polish are among the many frontal, or dental languages. The tongue in these languages is always somewhere around the front teeth, tapping against them. This is not the case in English. English is spoken as if the speaker has a hot potato in the mouth.

Following are a few examples of how the mouth is held in other languages, by way of comparison to English.

It’s All In Your Mouth

In English, the jaw is fairly relaxed, and the mouth is held in a medium open position. The tongue is held in the middle of the mouth, and the corners of the mouth are relaxed. The tongue hits the gums above the front teeth more often than the teeth themselves.

In French, the tongue is kept slightly raised to make a narrow tunnel in the vocal cavity. The muscles at the corner of the mouth are tensed and the lips protrude a bit when speaking. The tongue is always in the vicinity of the front teeth, in a more forward position than it is in English. The point of resonance is high.

Spanish speakers keep their jaws loose, their mouth in a medium open position. The tongue is held slightly raised and forward, always in the vicinity of the front teeth. The lips are relaxed, but the muscles at the corners of the mouth are slightly tensed. The point of articulation is near the front of the mouth.

In German, the jaw is tight, and the mouth is held in a somewhat closed position. The tongue is held slightly raised and forward. The lips are relaxed, but slightly protruded, and the muscles at the corners of the mouth are a bit tensed. The point of articulation is back in the mouth.

Russian speakers keep their jaws loose, with their mouth in a fairly wide open position. The tongue is held raised and slightly back. Lips are relaxed and slightly protruded, and the muscles at the corners of the mouth are relaxed.

Imitate Accents

Practice imitating the various accents of foreign speakers speaking your native language. That is where it is easiest to see how each language requires a different mouth position to speak the language properly. Then, practice speaking your own language with an English accent over and over again, until you can feel the difference between how you would normally hold your mouth to speak, and how you need to hold your mouth to speak English.

Passive Listening

Here is a simple idea that really helps.  Just have someone speaking English in the background of your daily life.  Keep the television or radio tuned to an English-speaking channel while you go about what you would normally do.  Don’t try to focus on what you are listening to.  Just let the sounds of the language wash over you and inhabit your brain.

Every language has unique sounds which are unfamiliar to other languages.  Every language has its own rhythm and flow that is unique to itself.  By passively listening to a language being spoken in the background of your life, you are training your brain to recognize distinct sounds made in the pronunciation of words themselves, and also in the speaking of an entire language system.

It will enable you, when you are actively engaged in learning, to better pronounce sounds, and to better mimic the flow of English.  You won’t learn to speak English just by listening to it in the background, but, having made a practice of passively listening to English, you will learn English more quickly when you bring your attention to it.

Active Listening

This is listening in order to learn.  Understanding normally spoken English is at the heart of really learning to speak the language.  The greatest problem virtually all of our clients have is in understanding what is being spoken to them directly or indirectly. 

Real, spoken English does not at all resemble phony dialogues in language books, or practice sentences spoken by teachers in classrooms.  The way to learn to understand real, spoken English is to listen to real, spoken English.  And, to listen to it over and over and over again. 

Some Resources for Listening

We’ve found at the Institute that a great way to practice listening is to find something very engaging to listen to.  We like to download podcasts from the educational section of  YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/edu, and Ted, http://www.ted.com/.  We also love podcasts from NPR (National Public Radio). 

You can download literally millions of free podcasts through iTunes onto an iPod or MP3 player.  Then you can listen to your heart’s content.  You can search for something that is interesting to you from a collection on virtually any topic you find interesting.  If it is interesting to you, it will be far easier for you to pay attention to the podcast.

With our clients, we often begin with Steve Jobs Commencement Speech at Stanford University, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc.  It is a very inspiring speech that is fairly easy to understand.  All of our business clients really enjoy listening to Jobs. 

How to Do It

What you want to do is listen to it over and over and over again, until you begin to understand 80 to 90 percent of what is being said.  You can listen all at once, or you can listen in little bite-sized pieces.  Listen on your way to work in the morning, listen when you are coming home, listen while you are exercising, but keep listening. 

Make sure you are listening to something you are interested in.  Listen to the same podcast for a week, or for two weeks, and then find another to take on.  You will be amazed at how quickly your understanding of real, spoken English will improve.