Sometimes the youngest students can be the smartest learners.

When you’re learning a new language, one of the hardest things to master is pronunciation. While it can be tempting to simply pronounce new words with the same accent and intonation you’d use in your native language, if you really want to blend in with the locals you have to do some extra groundwork, and sometimes that can mean rewriting what you’ve learned in the textbook…literally. 

It’s a lesson in language learning that came to everyone’s attention recently on Twitter, when the English instructors over at @KoalaEnglish180 shared the following tweet with the message:

▼ “The ears of an elementary school student hearing English for the first time are amazing. Treasure this intuition.”

As the photo shows, the elementary school student who heard these English words being pronounced for the first time had no prior knowledge of how they’re usually rendered into Japanese, so they simply wrote them how they heard them. As a result, the pronunciation is much closer to how a local would pronounce the words, and entirely different to how students in Japan usually learn to pronounce them at school.  

Taking a closer look at the elementary school student’s pronunciation list, we see that the first word, “water“, is written out as “わーらー”, which is pronounced “waaraa“. In everyday scenarios, a lot of native speakers drop the hard “t” in “water”, so if you were to say “waaraa” quickly, it wouldn’t sound that different to the way most people usually say “water”, especially when pronouncing the “r” the way Japanese speakers do, with the tongue touching the top of the palate.

Once you start learning English at a Japanese school, however, the pronunciation for “water” is written out as “ウォーター”, or if you were using hiragana like the elementary school student who hasn’t learnt the katakana syllabary yet, “うおーたー”. This is pronounced “uootaa”, which makes sense in Japanese, as “u” is used for other words starting with “w”, like “wood” (“uu-do”), but the hard “u” sound is something native speakers don’t use when saying “water”, rendering a very Japanese pronunciation of the word as a result.

▼ When an elementary school student knows more about the real world than a textbook.

Taking a look at the other words, we have:

Girl — usually pronounced “ガール” (“gaaru”) in Japanese — written as “ぐおー” (“グオー”), pronounced “guoo“, with a long “o” sound at the end

Cool — usually pronounced “クール” (“kuuru”) in Japanese — written as “くーお” (“クオー”), pronounced “kuoo“, with a long “o” sound at the end

Pretty — usually pronounced “プリティ” (“puriti”) in Japanese — written as “ぷうぃりー”, pronounced “puirii“, which drops the hard “t” sound again

Cat — usually pronounced “キャット” (“kyatto”) in Japanese — written as “きゃあ”, pronounced “kyaa”, again dropping the hard “t”

Really — usually pronounced “リアリー” (“riarii”) in Japanese — written as “うぃーりー”, pronounced “uiirii”

The last six words are:

Important — pronounced “インポータント” (“inpootanto”) in Japanese — written as “いんぽーるん”, pronounced “impoorun”, with long “o” and “u” sounds

Bottle — pronounced “ボトル” (“botoru”) in Japanese — written as “ぼーろー”, pronounced “booroo”, with long “o” sounds

Train — pronounced “トレイン” (“torein”) in Japanese — written as “ちゅえいん”, pronounced “chuein”

A lot of — pronounced “アロットオブ” (“a rotto obu”) in Japanese — written as “あろら”, pronounced “arora”

Not at all — pronounced “ノットアットオール” (“notto atto ooru”) in Japanese — written as “のらろー”, pronounced “noraroo”, with a long “o” sound at the end

I don’t know — pronounced “アイドントノウ” (“ai donto noo”) in Japanese — written as “あろのー”, pronounced “aronoo”, with a long “o” sound at the end

We’re particularly enamoured with the pronunciation of those last four on the list, which really capture the twang of a native English speaker. In fact, we could make good use of that last one in the office ourselves, as “arono” would save us a lot of time and energy on all those occasions when Mr Sato asks us to take part in his escapades.

It’s impressive to see how spot-on an elementary school student’s listening skills can be when it comes to producing natural-sounding English pronunciation. Here’s hoping they remember this lesson as they get older, and may we all harness the intuition of an elementary school student in our own language studies!

Source: Twitter/@KoalaEnglish180 via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso, Twitter/@KoalaEnglish180
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