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Mouth Movements

Early-Concentrate111
On YouTube, almost every American English pronunciation channel uses exaggerated mouth movements. For example, when pronouncing the long “o” vowel, their lips look like they’re about to kiss someone. I tried that and noticed that my pronunciation sounded better. So why don’t native speakers do it? I live in the U.S. and see hundreds of people speaking every day, and none of their mouth movements look like that. Yet, they sound way better than me. In fact, most of their lip movements aren’t even that noticeable. I don’t get it.

4 comments

iamcarlgauss•
They sound way better than you because they're natives. That's really all it is. They *could* sound "better" if they enunciated more, but people are lazy and speak lazily. Actors, broadcasters, and now I'm sure YouTubers often do exercises and even take classes to improve their enunciation and speak as clearly as possible.
JenniferJuniper6•
You have to try harder when you’re just learning. We had to do that too; it’s just that we were toddlers then. Eventually you’ll do it more easily.
PazMajor•
It's just like any skill. A newbie must try twice as hard to approximate what is correct, and the veterans know exactly what they're doing. Native speakers intuitively know the minimal amount of movement required in order to accomplish a specific sound.
dontknowwhattomakeit•
As natives we have had often decades of experience with the language and have been speaking it essentially our whole lives. We have acquired muscle memory in our mouths, tongues, and throats specifically to make the sounds of English from years and years of practice. When you learn a new language as an adult, you have already spent the same amount of time building muscle memory with *your* native language, but the muscle memory you need to speak English like a native speaker is going to be completely different. It’s easy to not notice subtle differences in pronunciation that stand out to natives or the ways sounds affect others around them or how the rhythm differs from your native language, etc. and then if/once you do notice, you have to work to ensure that you don’t slip back into what is most comfortable for you (the sounds, muscle memory, and rhythm of your native language). It takes a lot of work to sound like a native speaker, so it’s not surprising that you feel natives sound better than you. It is their native language, after all.