eli5: Why is pronouncing words from other languages difficult?

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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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Anonymous 0 Comments

So there are studies that have confirmed that a human child, if they have not heard certain sounds by the age of 5, will effectively be unable to hear/process/make those sounds.

A good example is a sound in yiddish (Hebrew) which they’ve found most english speakers (especially Americans) literally don’t even HEAR when it’s used because their brains, used to american english, literally filter’s it out as an extraneous sound that doesnt need to be heard.

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