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@BillyClark@piefed.social

2026-04-21 15:30 UTC

One thing I learned while living in Japan and teaching English is that people who speak foreign languages might hear things differently from you. The most striking example was that my students often couldn't even hear the difference between "she" and "sea" unless I was pointing it out in isolation. The difference is obvious to English speakers, but subtle to Japanese speakers. And yes, there are examples the other way, but they're harder to explain here. Often, it's the difference between vowel sounds. Japanese are more strict, but an English speaker might not distinguish between an 'i' and an 'e' sound at speed. And have a bigger tendency to slur their pronunciation in this case. But anyway, it wouldn't surprise me if there were similar things in French and English. So how can you know if you're speaking perfectly unless you check with a native? Only when you're nearing fluency can you start to understand.

Replies (4)

  • @merc@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-21 17:24

    Japanese is a syllable-timed language whereas English is a stress-timed language. That makes a big difference when it comes to the clarity of vowel sounds. In English in unimportant syllables, the vowel sounds get relaxed and tend towards being prounounced as a [Schwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa_(letter)). In Japanese, syllables are expected to take more or less the same time each, and as a result there's no relaxation of the pronunciation of the vowel sounds. So, for example, when an American says "Toyota" they'll tend to say "tuh-YO-duh" because the natural emphasis in English is on the second syllable, which means the unstressed syllables get relaxed and become more like the schwa sound. Also, the "t" sound shifts to a "d" sound because it's easier not to cut off the vocalization to hit that final "t", and since it's unstressed it doesn't matter so much. In Japanese it's "TO-Yo-Ta'" The first syllable is slightly stressed and every vowel sound is clear, and the final "t" is important. In fact, the name used to be "Toyoda" named after the founding family's name, and they intentionally switched that to a "t" sound instead.

    Open ##1646281

  • @brezel@piefed.social 2026-04-21 16:19

    a friend of mine which immigrated to my country 15 years ago speaks 6 languages and she's really really good with languages, yet she still doesn't sound like she grew up here. i think mastering a language so that native speakers can't ever tell you're not a native speaker is very hard or almost impossible. maybe it's not the same for all languages but german is one of those languages where i think it's extremely hard.

    Open ##1646282

  • @bus_factor@lemmy.world 2026-04-21 19:15

    If you haven't heard a spoken sound in your first few years of life (I've even seen people claim months), it's very hard to learn to tell the difference well. You can learn to pronounce them perfectly at any age, but a lot of the time subtly different words will be hard to distinguish if you didn't grow up with hearing them. Argentinians (and possibly other Spanish speakers) struggle with e.g. "peach" vs "pitch", and worry about mispronouncing "beach". Some Asians famously struggle with R vs L, which seems baffling to a speaker of western languages, but if you actually look at the frequencies, they're nearly identical sounds. We've just been trained from infancy to hone in on the difference to the point that it's hard to comprehend them sounding similar to other people.

    Open ##1646283

  • @Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-21 17:27

    Absolutely once you get to the age of ten your ears are tuned to the language(s) you've already learned and you'll never hear the same as a native speaker of a different language. If you weren't raised in French you cannot hear the differences between é è and ê

    Open ##1646284