Forget This!: 6 Reasons you Should *NOT* Learn the IPA if you Want to Improve your English

Today's lesson might be a little controversial, though it shouldn't be. We'll be discussing 6 reasons why I think you should NOT learn the IPA if you want to improve your English, especially if you're learning American English! I know many like the IPA, but it's mainly a tool for linguistics, not language learning. Learn more in today's American English Pronunciation and Ear Training lesson from English Hacks and let me know what you think!

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Intro: (0:00)
Who is this lesson for?: (0:44)
What the IPA is actually good for in language learning: (1:13)
6 Reasons: (3:42)
1 - The IPA is knowledge-based, not skill-based: (4:03)
2 - The IPA is an ALPHABET (symbols, not sounds): (4:22)
The "secret" solution: (5:05)
3 - Different qualities of the same sound: (5:46)
4 - The nonsense of "long" vs "short": (7:03)
5 - American English has more than one neutral accent!: (8:13)
Develop REAL skills!: (9:39)
6 - Not all dictionaries use the same IPA transcription: (9:52)
Outro, question, and up next: (10:34)

#IPA #PhoneticEnglish #NoIPA #English #AmericanEnglish #EnglishPronunciation #AmericanPronunciation #EarTrainingEnglish #EnglishHacks

[davidkeller]

Yeah, as someone who's been learning English as an additional language for over a decade, I disagree. The thing is that: yes it's used by linguists, but if you're a determined language learner because you tried recording yourself time and again and the results stay the same, you start reaching out for new methods - without becoming a linguist. The IPA doesn’t just add symbols for kicks. On the contrary, the IPA is all about place and manner of articulation. This has helped me utter sounds more reliably, because at least I have a theoretical reference frame. On top of that, it doesn’t take long to learn it.

And if you're a determined language learner you will not miss the part virtually any introductory course tells you about the IPA: that it has limits and that it’s just a basis to start describing sounds from.

Also, vowel length is a thing even for language learners. Adding the caveat „technically not the IPA’s fault“ is not an excuse to discredit the IPA. The IPA doesn’t call [ɑ] and [o̟u̟] long and short <o> s.

I mean, your English hacks program could actually take a decent approach, but I’m going assume it lacks awareness of its students’ phonology / perception, just how you assumed so many things about what learning strategies might be beneficial to your clients in this video.

That’s if for my little rant. Nothing personal, the IPA just really went a long way in my English learning journey.

[arnobrunelbrunel]

I love the IPA and can't live without it, but I try to drop it with Time as we cannot analyse scientifically every word . I agree with you it is imperfect

[rtemis-mtdt]

I disagree with all the points. The IPA is not a crutch but a necessary foundation.
I spent the most time studying the IPA because I was just beginning to learn how the speech tract works and that there are other phonemes beyond my native language. I didn’t just memorize the letters in the chart—I associated each phoneme with its position in the mouth. It took me some time to get used to these new positions, and simultaneously, I learned to distinguish the differences in sounds.

It’s amusing to me that you think we assume one symbol in the IPA sounds the same as its description on Wikipedia. After learning how to produce a particular phoneme, I listen to different people and memorize the pronunciation I prefer. Then, I imitate them. This isn’t some rigid action plan; it’s a natural progression.

The IPA table is always useful when encountering a word we've never heard before. Without it, we wouldn’t know how to read such words correctly. Why do you assume we’re incapable of hearing subtle differences in pronunciation—like, for example, the schwa—after gaining a basic education about accents?

I no longer need to teach myself how to position my tongue or mouth; I’ve already mastered that. Now, I focus on entirely different aspects. I’m familiar with the phonemes, so my attention is on finding speakers with the specific accent I’m trying to learn—particularly those elements that distinguish their accent from others, beyond just phonemes.

Thanks to a solid theoretical foundation, I was able to progress quickly. However, I lack enough practice to solidify my accent, and that’s simply because I don’t dedicate enough time to it.

The arguments you presented are unnatural. We don’t learn in the way you described, and we don’t need that kind of advice because we don’t think like that. I hope that most people use their judgment when deciding what they hear and what they should learn next. I believe the main issue is that some people simply lack the desire to improve.

[kushi]

this is a very useful video thanks for sharing

[tedc]

I agree. I speak American English fluently. IPA does not have all my sounds. Vowel sounds vary a lot in different accents. English dictionaries often use a "similar to IPA" notation for pronunciation, but it isn't real IPA. For example most dictionaries use /r/ where the actual sound is /ɹ/. There is no subsitute for training your ears -- I'm studing Mandarin, and that's a problem for me.

[Garfield_Minecraft]

I just listen to Native and copy them
And learn IPA later 😹


I'm bilingual i familiar to English
It's easy for me

[muhannedabass]

Thanks for the amazing content and for bieng honest (I said honset cuz I see that in your videos and specially when made a review about the App ELSA while other famous coaches exaggerating there reviews about it and promote it).
I got here cuz of your video about "voice placement" which I liked so much after watching different videos about it and from famous language coach on YouTube. I hope your channel to be one of the best known on YouTube (only if that won't affect the content quality 😉).
Finding your channel was like finding a treasure.
Btw, I'm from Iraq, so if you need anything regarding Arabic language/pronunciation, I would be more than happy to give a hand. 🤝
All the best coach, teacher, man, buddy etc! 😊👍👌🙏

[iiAbdullah]

I'm going to keep using it. Even though, It has several problems. In my opinion, All transcriptions have almost all these problems. Just rely on your ears, but if you want to learn a phonetic transcription. I recommend IPA over EHPT. IPA is much, much more common than EHPT. You could find it in other YouTubers'/linguets' videos. On the other hand, EPHT is friendly more to native speakers who don't know anything about pronunciation + You Don't Need To Copy & Paste Symbols. At the end of the day, it's up to you whether you want to use IPA or EHPT. I suggest IPA; I use both. [symbols] for EPHT, /symbols/ for IPA. Gracias por leer!

[deliohector]

Hey Josh! Great video as always, and thanks for going against the grain by providing us with the drawbacks of using the IPA to improve our pronunciation/accent. As far as I know, you're the first one who's ever talked about this on YT, and for that I salute you.

Now, although I'm still a proponent of the use of the IPA, I do understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you on every point you make. That being said, I'm not sure I'd suggest the use of the IPA to the average English learner bc my specific case is “special”, as it were: Seeing that one of the core subjects from my University course is Linguistics, and given that I've been using the IPA for a long time now, continuing to use it won't be detrimental to me personally bc I've also noticed the problems you mentioned and I've chosen to stick to what works for me and discard what doesn't. In fact, one of the first things I ignored was the whole “long” vs “short” vowels thing given that it's unnecessarily confusing and, in my estimation, in Linguistics- and I may be wrong- vowel length isn't really a property that vowels have. Only backness/forwardness, openness, tension/*tenseness?(whether they're lax vowels or tense vowels).

Anyway, we should definitely train our ears by getting a lot of input, by doing minimal/suspect pairs pairs exercises, by zeroing in on what natives actually say using a computer software or better still, by using your ear-training software.

What's more, irrespective of how I feel about the IPA, only ear-training will help us sound more like a native.

Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk😅

[Lukascaetano-ie]

Great video more people should be aware of it, IPA is a great tool for linguistics and dialect coaches but for language learners it's horrible idea

[Esthers]

I learned English as a foreign language and now teaching in the states. The point is phonemic awareness. Wether you learn IPA or not, you need to know what sounds differ meanings in this language and how they blend together to make up words. Kids need that to spell and read, language learners need it for listening comprehension. You Americans make like four five different /t/ sounds, not a problem. Still need to teach every single phoneme and some allophones in terms of pronunciation.

[josephandino]

Tu eres mi profesor favorito al igual que cody

[soupysoup]

imagine being a toddler and looking up the IPA online to learn your own first language

[soupysoup]

Long and short vowels only work for natives or somebody around their level. It's just a lazy, quick way to pronounce words. IPA is just a dog poop and has no use. I think the median is yeah, you rather not use it but if you do as a beginner, so be it. For anybody in the comment section, it's worth learning to hear things and it's gonna be months if not a year or two on end while you're practicing the phases from 0 to 3. You'll see a lotta improvement and it all just comes from listening to people talk casually, not lurking at the IPA or some other unrealistic stuff or ways of learning

[soupysoup]

"which dictionary you pick?" - English hacks, there's no such thing as none lol

[pyrenees]

Lol this video is just a 10 minute unresearched ad for the things you sell. You said some valid things; but for the most part you said some very subjective things and presented that as objective and universal...