2.2.1.2 Problems of Learning Pronunciation
As mentioned before, there are problems that may happen in a process of learning pronunciation. First of all, students usually pronounce a sound which is new and
unfamiliar with the close sounds they have already known. For example, the word
“measure” [ˈmeʒər], Indonesian students will have problem to pronounce this
word since their vocal cords have never been trained to pronounce it. As a result,
they will replace this sound with [mes ər] or [meʃur]. Second, Indonesian
students used to pronounce word in the way it is written. For example, the
alphabet “u” will be read as [u] such as in “laut”, and alphabet “a” will be read as [
ᴧ] such as in “bapak”. Whereas English words are not always read as the way it is written. The “u” in “sung” for instance, which is pronounced as [sᴧŋ] and the “a”
in “sang” which is read as [æ] so that “sang” will be correctly pronounced as [sæ
ŋ] instead of [sᴧŋ]. The third problem is that students rarely check the correct
pronunciation in their dictionary, for example, they guess the word “balloon” to
be pronounced as [b ᴧlɔn] instead of [bəˈluːn].
These errors cannot be separated from the language students accustomed to. Ramelan 2003: 4 mentioned “if someone wants to learn a foreign language;
they will obviously meet with all kinds of learning problems”. Moreover, MacCarthy in Dalton and Seidlhofer, 1994: 125 adds that “the capacity of the
ordinary person to perceive auditory phenomena of the language to be learnt is widely, but quite wrongly, taken granted.”
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In fact, the problems start when the students are trying to speak as natural as native speakers do. Often, they do not know exactly how to pronounce a
particular word accurately, but they keep their over-confidence unless someone tells them that their pronunciation is incorrect and try to fix it.
Still, there are some reasons why those errors happen. In order to figure them out, the next sub-chapter will talk about the reasons for pronunciation
problems.
2.2.1.3 Reasons for Pronunciation Problems
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