How does phonetic interference affect German language acquisition

Phonetic interference significantly affects German language acquisition, primarily through the unwanted transfer of sounds, intonations, and pronunciation patterns from a learner’s native language or other languages they know. This interference manifests in various ways, such as deviations in segmental features like vowels and consonants, as well as prosody, including pitch patterns and rhythm. ^{1, 2, 3, 4}

Key Effects of Phonetic Interference

• Errors in pronunciation: Learners may retain phonetic features from their first language, leading to an accent or pronunciation errors that hinder clarity and comprehension. This is often due to difficulty distinguishing or producing certain phonemes that are not present or are different in their native language. ^{3, 1}
• Accent and regional variation: Interference contributes to the emergence of a “foreign accent,” which reflects regionally marked intonation and phonetic patterns transferred from the learner’s native or another known language. ^{2, 5}
• Difficulty in perceiving and producing phonetic contrasts: Learners may struggle with phoneme distinctions that are not present in their native language, such as the /w/-/v/ or /ε/-/æ/ contrasts in English or German, which can affect both perception and production. ^{6, 7}

Factors Influencing Phonetic Interference

• Language similarity: The degree of typological and phonetic similarity between German and the learner’s native language influences the extent of interference. ^{8, 9}
• Age and exposure: Younger learners or those with more consistent exposure to correct phonetic cues tend to develop more native-like pronunciation, although interference can still occur depending on input quality. ^{10, 3}
• Perception and discrimination: Difficulties in perceiving certain phonetic contrasts in the second language—especially if these contrasts are absent in the native language—can perpetuate interference errors. ^{7, 11}

Mitigation Strategies

• Focused training on difficult phonetic contrasts and prosody can help learners reduce interference. ^{4, 1}
• Increasing exposure to native pronunciation and using instrumental feedback can improve learning outcomes and minimize fossilization of incorrect sounds. ^{12, 3}

In essence, phonetic interference is a natural obstacle in German language learning, rooted in cross-linguistic transfer, but can be mitigated through targeted pedagogical approaches and immersive experiences. ^{1, 3}

References

• PHONETIC INTERFERENCE IN LEARNING GERMAN AS A SECOND FOREIGN LANGUAGE

• Acquisition of regional pitch patterns in L2

• PRONUNCIATION PERILS: OVERCOMING PHONETIC INTERFERENCE IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

• Tracing the Phonetic Space of Prosodic Focus Marking

• Remote Testing of the Familiar Word Effect With Non-dialectal and Dialectal German-Learning 1–2-Year-Olds

• Category and Perceptual Interference in Second-language Phoneme Learning: an Examination of English /w/-/v/ Learning by Sinhala, German, and Dutch Speakers

• Category and perceptual interference in second-language phoneme learning: an examination of English /w/-/v/ learning by Sinhala, German, and Dutch speakers.

• The impact of typological similarities and differences between German and Italian on the acquisition of language-specific phonetic cues in bilingual children: insights from the T-complex

• Acoustic Similarity Predicts Vowel Phoneme Detection in an Unfamiliar Regional Accent: Evidence from Monolinguals, Bilinguals and Second-Language Learners

• The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects

• Cross-linguistic perceptual learning in advanced second language listeners

• My English sounds better than yours: Second-language learners perceive their own accent as better than that of their peers

• PHONETIC INTERFERENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF GERMAN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• Category and perceptual interference in second-language phoneme learning: An examination of English vertical bar w vertical bar-vertical bar v vertical bar learning by Sinhala, German, and Dutch speakers

• Особенности обучения фонетической стороне речи в условиях искусственного многоязычия

• Examples of language interference in the speech of children and adults who study Bulgarian as a second language in a German language environment

• The role of vowel length and glottalization in German learners’ perception of the English coda stop voicing contrast

• Lexical and Phonetic Influences on the Phonolexical Encoding of Difficult Second-Language Contrasts: Insights From Nonword Rejection

• Phonetic detail in German syllable pronunciation: influences of prosody and grammar

• Remote Testing of the Familiar Word Effect With Non-dialectal and Dialectal German-Learning 1–2-Year-Olds

• Inflectional morphology in German hearing-impaired children

• The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects

• Developing automaticity in neural speech discrimination in typically developing bilingual Italian-German and monolingual German children

• My English sounds better than yours: Second-language learners perceive their own accent as better than that of their peers

• The Social Meaning of Contextualized Sibilant Alternations in Berlin German