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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Part of it is that some sounds are literally more difficult than others. We know this because children develop the ability to produce some sounds before others, even if their ears and brains are properly distinguishing all the sounds they need. However, it’s that last thing that really makes the difference. Most of the time that you struggle to produce a sound, it’s not because it’s physically particularly difficult, it’s because you weren’t exposed to it during the period that you were able to pick up sounds easily.
Before 6 months of age, babies can distinguish all sounds that are meaningfully different in all languages. After that period, more or less, their brains start streamlining. After all, processing that much information takes energy, and so it starts ignoring distinctions it doesn’t need to pay attention to. For instance, in English, [p] and [pʰ] are in complementary distribution, so you don’t need to hear one from the other. But if you grow up speaking Mandarin, this distinction will be natural for you to hear and produce.
Personally, I find acquiring new sounds fairly easy, but this is because I have a good intuitive and explicit understanding of how the vocal tract is organized and can be shaped to produce sounds. It’s a skill one can develop with practice and learning. But it doesn’t compare to infants. Infants are language-learning machines
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