Stop making sense: focus on sounds to help learn a language, study suggests

If you want to get really good at French, Arabic or Hungarian, don’t start with rote learning vocabulary and grammar, focus on how they sound instead, research suggests.

A new study of how humans learn modern languages has found that the brains of the most talented linguists hear foreign terms as random noise, not words.

Normally, when people learn a language, they try to understand it through the sounds of their native tongue. The more different the foreign language’s sounds and pronunciation are from the native language, the harder the new language will probably be to learn.

But the best linguists master even the trickiest pronunciation much more easily. ​To find out why, researchers at UCL and Tohoku University, Japan, compared the auditory precision of 67 Japanese learners of English by measuring their ability to detect slight changes in pitch, length and tone, in non-speech sounds. Using functional MRI scans, they measured participants’ brain activity as they tried to distinguish between English vowel sounds that do not occur in Japanese.

They found that those with higher auditory precision mastered the pronunciation of new languages faster and more accurately than other learners and relied less on the brain’s left sensorimotor system (involved in language processing) when processing foreign-language sounds. Instead, their brain activity patterns were similar to those that occur when the brain processes non-speech sounds.

With less interference from pre-existing patterns of their native language, it was simpler for these learners to accurately process new sounds.

In contrast, those with lower auditory precision relied more on the brain’s left sensorimotor network when listening to foreign-language sounds. They used the pronunciation patterns of their native language when processing unfamiliar sounds.

The latest findings challenge stereotypes that Britons are less adept at languages. Prof Kazuya Saito-van Poeteren, the lead author and professor of second language education at UCL Institute of Education, said: “I do not think British people are biologically bad at languages. The problem is more likely to be that many people receive too little meaningful exposure, combined with teaching methods that do not necessarily train the auditory skills needed to make the most of that limited exposure.

“If you only hear and use the language for a small number of hours each week, having a good ear may make a much bigger difference. Learners with high auditory precision can make very effective use of relatively sparse input, whereas others may need much more exposure before unfamiliar sounds begin to become established,” he said.

The findings also suggest schools should focus on sounds much more than just grammar and vocabulary when teaching modern languages, he added.

“Foreign language education should move beyond an approach based on ‘more practice’ and towards one that develops learners’ ear for language learning in line with their auditory characteristics,” he said.

Responding to the findings, Prof Padraic Monaghan, professor of cognition at Lancaster University, said: “Traditional language learning relies on structured practice, but our brains are naturally attuned to acquire languages through exposure. This study confirms how vital listening is to learning, though learners vary in their sound sensitivity at least in the early stages of hearing new language sounds.”