I know our brains are trained in a certain way from childhood, but could someone elaborate? It seems physically impossible yet it is very much possible
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ESL teacher of 10 years here! Finally, my time to shine.
On the surface: it is because you are not use to saying **those specific sounds in that specific order**. You are also not used to needing to actively think about the word you are saying. It takes practice to build the neural connections in your brain and make the reactions faster when saying a word. You have had a lifetime of experience speaking your native language, a lot of that experience at ages where you naturally soak it up.
There is a deeper explanation, however, and that is because sounds between languages can very dramatically. For example: Did you know that English itself has two L sounds? Or multiple T sounds? You almost certainly don’t unless you’ve had linguistic training, and the reason you can’t hear the difference between them is because you don’t have to. To use two different languages: “N” in Mandarin words like “ni” is not pronounced in the same way as the word “knee” in English, even though they sound essentially the same to our ear at first. These small differences are compounded by unusual inflections and intonations we may not be used to in a different language. Different languages are just spoken at different “rhythms” and it takes time to get to know that.
When you add the two paragraphs together, it means your brain is already working overtime to produce sounds it *doesn’t know how to produce with the tongue yet*. Through actively practicing sounds in isolation and then diligently practicing speaking out in the real world, you can reduce the gap between what you think the sound is and what it actually is. Further, listening to the language more will help you begin to distinguish the difference between its sound and your own language.
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