Because the same letters in the traditional alphabet are pronounced differently in different languages, most linguists prefer to use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which uses different symbols to represent all the hundred or so sounds in human speech, whatever the language, whatever the alphabet or script. The IPA assigns one symbol to one sound.
Why is this important? To take a simple example: German, English and French pronounce the letter ‘u’ in three totally different ways. Therefore, the IPA uses three separate symbols. The Latin alphabet by contrast uses the same letter in each case. This deceives us into thinking that we can pronounce a foreign ‘u’ just like an English one.
If we pronounce the French tu [you] as tout [all], as so many English people do, we will still be understood. Our accent will raise a smile among our Gallic neighbours, but we will get our point across. But if we can’t hear the difference between the two sounds, we are unlikely to understand even the most basic conversation, because our ears are expecting an English sound, and something totally different comes out instead.
Because the full extent of sound differences is hidden by the Latin alphabet, the hardest words to comprehend in other languages are often ones that look identical or very similar to English. So we have to pay particular attention to how they are pronounced.
A real-life example: I was teaching English to a Frenchwoman who spoke good English. We were listening to a radio broadcast and the presenter used the word ‘hierarchy.’ The word should not have been difficult for the student to understand, since the French equivalent is hiérarchie. The spelling is almost identical, so what was the problem? Pronunciation. That advanced learner tried listening and re-listening – ten times or more – and she still couldn’t guess the meaning of the word. She had the tools to speak, but not to understand.
And one of the essential tools to enable us to hear new sounds is the IPA alphabet. In the IPA system, the English word ‘hierarchy’ would be written ˈhaɪərɑ:kɪ, whereas the French equivalent in IPA symbols would be ʼjerarʃi. That looks terrifying, perhaps, but it helps us to see that not one single letter in the two words is pronounced the same in the two languages, although the spelling is almost identical. No wonder my student found it so hard to understand.
Our traditional alphabet hides the challenges involved in learning to understand the spoken word. The consequence is that many learners feel that they don’t have the “gift of tongues”. In reality, they have just been given a Latin alphabet hammer when the IPA screwdriver would have been the appropriate tool.
This is an extract from The Language Secret: How to Learn a Foreign Language: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HFSN7Y5
