I've observed something very interesting

I'm a fan of learning languages (semi fluent in French, learning Korean) and fluent in English and Filipino, and I consider myself a fast learner.

I've observed people who learn other languages and I've seen something common:

1)

People find it hard to pronounce words of other languaged because of one thing

They use sounds of their language, not the language they're studying.

for example, you'll see that most Koreans who learn English have common tonal defects especially in 'r/l' (ㄹ in Hangul)

2)

In English, the letters 'r' and 'l' are clearly distinguished, but in Korean , they're both signified by ㄹ, the sound of ㄹ is similar to r in english, but with an 'l' sound at the end.

the problem is that they use the sounds of their own alphabet like this ㄹ to Mimic 'r'

3)

something like the word 'lore' will roughly be pronounced by a korean student as 'rlorle'

this is an example, and the 'borrowing' of other languages' elements are common to most people.

So, when learning a language or something, the first thing you must do is UNLEARN.

4)

That's how I got a foreign like English accent here in the Philippines

I unlearned sounds I learned from my native language (Filipino) and started using sounds of the ENGLISH alphabet, not the FILIPINO one

this turned out to very similar to native English speakers!

5)

You see, the filipino and English alphabets are very similar, but with very different tonal pronunciations

by unlearning the Filipino tones that I know, and immersing myself on the normal English tones, I've developed a solid accent myself.

I did the exact same with French

6)

again, the English alphabet is practically a simplified French alphabet, but the sounds are different

try pronouncing thr French word 'magnetophone' as an English speaker

the french pronunciation of that is roughly 'manyeytofong', way different than your pronunciation

7)

by unlearning the English tones when learning French, I easily got the proper pronunciation, because I based myself on the French language itself, NOT the English which I previously knew

and this technique of unlearning is applicable to a variety of topics, not just language

8)

tl:dr

When learning languages, or something in general, the first thing you must do is UNLEARN.

try and learn from the difference of what you know and what you're trying to know, not just it's similarities.

hopefully this helps!

end)

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