Why Pakistanis Struggle with English Pronunciation: 2 Main Reasons.

Most Pakistanis believe these letters to be representative of the same sounds when they are not.

Most Pakistanis start learning English at a very young age. Many of us begin learning it from our siblings or parents even before we step into school. After school this learning process continues through college and university.

So, technically, we spend more than ten or fifteen years learning English.

But after all these years, many of us still do not sound anything like native English speakers when we speak. Our English often sounds different, unnatural, or sometimes even awkwardly funny.

Now the question is: why?

Is fifteen years not enough to learn a language?

Of course, it is enough.

The real problem is not the amount of time we spend learning English. The real problem is the way we are taught English.

In Pakistan, we are usually taught English as a written subject. We learn spellings, grammar rules, translations, essays, and textbook answers. In other words, our entire focus is on the written form of English. But when it comes to English speech, we are rarely taught how it actually works.

And that is where the problem begins. But before we start talking about the problems we need to know what speech is.

What is speech?

Speech is basically a structured combination of sounds.

When I speak, I produce sounds from my mouth. These sounds travel through the air (or electrical signals) and reach your ears. Then your brain decodes those sounds and gives them meaning.

This is how spoken language works.

So, if we want to speak English naturally, we first need to understand the sound system of English. But unfortunately this, more often than not, is sidelined in our academia, leading to two problems which make our speech sound so foreign to the speech of native English speakers.

The Problems

Problem 1: Using Our Native-Language's Sounds to Speak English

Many people in Pakistan assume that the sounds of English are already present in Urdu or in our local languages. This is not 100% true. Some sounds in English and Urdu are similar. But not all of them.

However, most of the Pakistanis think that Urdu has all the sounds of English, and we don't need to learn any new sounds separately. And that's the problem.

For example, it is commonly believed that,

• The sound represented by letter "T" = The sound represented by letter "ٹ"
• The sound represented by letter "D" = The sound represented by letter "ڈ"
• The sound represented by letter "R" = The sound represented by letter "ر"

but the sounds represented by these letters are produced completely differently; in other words, they are not the same.

So, when we try to speak English without learning these sounds properly, we are basically speaking English through the sound system of our own first language. In other words, the words may be English, but we are speaking them in Urdu, Punjabi, Saraiki, or another local language's style.

Now, when we do that, i.e., when we speak English with sounds of our local languages, we may not even realise that we are using Urdu's sounds for English because our mind cannot perceive the difference between the two yet. But a native English speaker's mind will almost instantaneously notice the difference.

Problem 2: We Rely Too Much on Spellings

The second major reason Pakistanis struggle with English pronunciation is that we focus too much on spellings.

Our academic system is mostly based on the written form of English. We read English. We write English. We memorise English. We translate English.

Many students think that if they know the spelling of a word, they automatically know how to pronounce it. But in English, this is not always true.

English orthography is deceptive (misleading/unreliable). Orthography means the writing system of a language, including spellings. There are many words in English that do not sound the way they are spelt. If you rely only on spellings, your pronunciation can become very unnatural – which ours does, because we do.

English spelling is not always a clear guide to pronunciation. Sometimes a single letter represents more than one sound, sometimes it is completely silent and sometimes multiple letters work together and represent one sound.

For example, look at these words:

• though 
• through
• tough
• cough
• bough

All of these words contain the letters “ough,” but they are not pronounced in the same way. Similarly "K" in "Knife" is silent. "X" in "maximum" is representing two sounds /k/ & /s/.

This shows that English spelling can be confusing.

Of course, spellings can help you sometimes. They are not completely useless. But if you rely entirely on spellings, your spoken English will suffer.

The Problem with Copying Native Accents

Sometimes – to fix these problems – Pakistani learners try to copy native English speakers. This is not completely wrong. Listening to native speakers is super useful. Imitation can also help a lot. But the problem begins when learners try to copy an accent without learning English sounds first.

When someone tries to sound British or American without understanding pronunciation, the result often sounds artificial and funny.

The speech sounds unnatural because the person is not actually using the sounds of English. They are just acting out an accent.

A good accent should come naturally after sound training. It should not feel like acting.

The Solution

If we want to improve the way our English sounds, the very first thing we need to know is the answer to these two questions:

• What sounds are used by native English speakers when they speak?
• How do native speakers produce/articulate those sounds?

Knowing the answer to these questions will help our minds perceive the difference between the sounds of English in comparison to the sounds in our native local languages. This will also help us understand and realise which sounds are similar or produced the same way in both languages and which sounds are not. 

Once we know that, we can diagnose our own pronunciation mistakes by assessing our recordings. And then fix the sounds which we mispronounce. This is a slow process, but it works 100%.

I offer free accent diagnosis for Pakistanis. If you e-mail me your recording (at least 2 minutes long) at saraikiustad.ed@gmail.com I'll help you diagnose the sounds that you need to drive your immediate focus towards.