Why Is English Pronunciation So Hard?
You are not alone if you think English pronunciation is hard. There are two main reasons why.
English is not a phonetic language.
All languages have their own unique language and speech sound system.
English is not a phonetic language.
As you may already know, words in English are often not spelled the way they sound. There are many silent consonants and many different spelling variations for a single sound (e.g., the sound /n/ can be spelled as n, gn, kn, nn). Some words are spelled the same but are pronounced differently to convey a different meaning (e.g., “desert” as in dry land and “desert” as to abandon). There are words that are spelled differently but sound the same (e.g., “flower” and “flour”). Therefore, It makes it difficult for English learners to anticipate how a word is pronounced based on its spelling.
All languages have their own unique language and speech sound system.
The speech sound system of your language may not have all the English speech sounds. Therefore, if a sound in English does not exist in your language, you may have difficulty pronouncing it since it is a new and unfamiliar sound. Your primary language may also have different speech rules from English, which you may be applying to English.
Let’s briefly compare English and Korean.
There are some sounds that are produced in both English and Korean (e.g., /m, n, p/); however, as you can see below, there are sounds in English that do not exist in Korean. These unfamiliar sounds would then most likely be substituted for a different sound (“fork” → “pork”).
English Consonants (not found in Korean)
/f/ “fun” /v/ “van” /z/ “zebra” /θ/ “thing” /ð/ “the” /ɹ/ “run” /ʃ/ “she” /ʒ/ “leisure” /tʃ / “choice” /dʒ/ “judge”
English Vowels (not found in Korean)
/ɪ/ “bit” /æ/ “bat” /ʊ/ “book” /ɔ/ “bought” /ɑɪ/ “bite” /ɑʊ/ “about” /ɔi/ “boy” /eɪ/ “bait” /oʊ/ “boat” Vocalic /r/
In addition, English has words with consonant clusters in its syllable structure (i.e., group of consonants such as “string”); however, there are no consonant clusters (at the beginning and at the end of words) in spoken Korean. Given the fact that there are no spoken consonant clusters in Korean and a vowel is required in each syllable structure, a Korean-speaking individual may add a vowel in between English consonant clusters. If that were to occur, the number of syllables in the word would increase. English is a “stress-timed” language whereas Korean is a “syllable-timed” language. Each syllable in Korean receives equal stress. However, specific syllables in English words are stressed and the meaning may change depending on where the stress is placed.
Speech sounds and rules from one language may transfer over to another language, impacting one’s overall speech pattern in the second language. When you consider all these factors, it makes sense as to why English is so challenging.
For those who speak a different language, what English sounds do not exist in your language? What do you have the most difficulty with and why do you think that is?
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Ha, S., Johnson, C. J., & Kuehn, D. P. (2009). Characteristics of Korean phonology. Journal of communication disorders, 42(3), 163–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2009.01.002
Sikorski, L. D. (2017). MEEC: Mastering Effective English Communication (2017th ed.). LDS & Associates.