I Spoke 5 Languages From Day One—Here's What Actually Affected My Pronunciation
1. Introduction
Will speaking early ruin your accent? Is staying silent a guarantee for spot-on pronunciation?
It’s an endless debate in language learning:
Speak early and fossilize bad pronunciation habits
Wait too long and miss out on valuable connections
But is it really that simple?
I’ve spoken from Day 1 in 5 different languages that I’ve learned. In English, I’m often mistaken for an American. In Cantonese, I’ve been told I have a ‘Hong Kong’ accent. In Spanish, teachers say I speak with a ‘Spain’ accent. In Norwegian I’ve been mistaken for a native speaker.
Yet, in Finnish I ended up sounding clearly foreign and developing some bad habits.
What led to this different outcome? What did I do different?
As I analyzed each language and how I learned them, I discovered things that go deeper than the ‘speak from day one vs. silent period’ debate. Things that touch on the psychological and emotional reasons behind how our pronunciation develops.
If you're wondering what actually affects pronunciation and how to develop a native-like accent, I think you'll find this post interesting and enlightning.
2. My 5-Language Experiment
Before we dive into what actually influenced my pronunciation, let’s go through the languages I speak and how I have learned them. We’ll examine different aspects of my learning methods and how they influenced my pronunciation—a personal ‘case study’ that you can draw conclusions from.
English (American)
- Frequent exposure through Swedish TV showing American content from an early age
- First spoke at age 9 during vacation to Greece
- 9 years of English in school
- Speaking, listening, reading & writing from the start of active learning (aside from the early cartoon exposure)
- Watched tons of unsubtitled American movies in high school
- International church community in early 20s (including Americans)
- 4 years living in the US in mid 20s
Cantonese
- Speaking from day 1
- 2-3 months of deliberate pronunciation and sound practice
- Listening-only for first 2 years (no reading)
- 75 hours of recorded conversation lessons over 3 years
- Regular listening back to recordings of myself
Norwegian
- Speaking from day 1
- Comprehension was already 70-80% due to language proximity to Swedish
- No deliberate study—purely learned through interacting with coworkers
- Several months per year in Norway over 10+ years
- Complete focus on spoken interaction (only occasionally needed to read or write in Norwegian)
Spanish
- Speaking from day 1
- Listening priority from the get-go and throughout learning journey
- Reading from the very start, but less time spent on it than listening
- Early speaking opportunities while in Spain
- Irregular speaking (months of silent periods)
Finnish
- Speaking from day 1—with more regular speaking than Cantonse and Spanish
- 30 hours of online conversation lessons total (recorded and reviewed)
- Some deliberate sound and pronunciation focus the first month
- Way less deliberate listening practice than other languages—listening mainly through interactions with natives
- Reading-focused learning since 6-month mark
Why was Finnish different?
Looking at these results, one question kept nagging me: Why did Finnish turn out so different? After all, I had MORE regular speaking practice in Finnish than many of my other languages by living in Finland for several years surrounded by native speakers. Still, my pronunciation was noticeably foreign and had developed some bad habits—the only language where this happened to this extent. The answer wasn't about speaking early or waiting, but likely a combination of several factors…
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The Cognitive Bandwidth Discovery
What I have realized over the years is that good pronunciation isn’t just about listening a lot—it's about having the mental bandwidth to focus on HOW people speak, not just WHAT they're saying.
You need to have enough space on your mental hard drive to download that information (i.e. “cognitive bandwidth”). Norwegian is an example. Since it’s close to Swedish, when I first came to Norway it was already 70-80% comprehensible. It didn’t take long before it went went to 90% and beyond (now it’s 98-99%.) This meant I could notice details in pronunciation, rhythm, and flow a lot sooner than with other languages.
But what about with Finnish? I had lots of conversation opportunities, but I was thrown into the deep end—trying to converse before being anywhere close to conversational. While I did this in Cantonese too, the quantity was greater in Finnish and I hadn’t done as much focused sound-study or pure listening practice.
This meant that all my brain capacity went into trying to understand Finnish and keep up. I was in “survival-listening-mode”, trying to figure out the what, rather than noticing the how.
It’s the difference between comprehension-focused listening vs. pronunciation-focused listening. When all your focus is on trying to understand what people are saying, there’s little focus to fully focusing on the sounds and other nuances that make up great pronunciation (rhythm, intonation, emphasis).
Listening in Conversations vs. Pure-listening practice
Another difference is I did way less pure listening in Finnish. I did some in the beginning, occasionally listened to Finnish podcasts, and used a listen-repeat app for a season on my Finnish journey. But I didn’t have the same pure listening focus of the other languages I’ve learned (excluding Norwegian).
When purely listening it’s different. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. You can listen to only the sounds and continue listening even if there are parts you don’t understand. In conversations, you can’t do that. Because if you get lost you have to stop and get clarification to continue, making conversations a different type of listening (before you’re at 95-99% comprehension).
With Norwegian I have only done listening through conversations as well. No pure audio-listening through TV shows, YouTube, podcasts, etc. But I have had way more conversations in Norwegian at a level where I was understanding just about everything people said—I had enough cognitive bandwidth to pay attention to how they spoke.
Insight: In conversations, it’s hard to do the type of listening that leads to good pronunciation—at least before you reach a level where you no longer have to spend so much attention on what people are saying. In Finnish, I was struggling for a long time to express myself in conversations that most of my mental energy went into that.
The Identity Factor
There's another factor that matters a lot: identity.
When I was younger, I felt more at home with Americans than with Swedes. To the point where I wanted to BE American. That gave me this internal drive to capture every nuance of how American English is spoken—to sound like “them.” For Cantonese, I was fascinated by Hong Kong culture and obsessed with the language. I wanted to be mistaken for a Hong Konger.
With Finnish, it was more complicated. I've been drawn to Finnish culture since I was a teenager—I even tried learning it years before meeting my wife. The language and culture genuinely fascinated me. But when I moved to a new country, and got married into a different culture, maintaining my own identity (Swedish) became important in a way it wasn't before.
This matters more than you'd think. Language learning research shows that pronunciation is deeply tied to identity. If we unconsciously resist parts of the culture, we end up sounding… well, not native. Finnish has this exaggerated way of saying things that feel a bit 'too much' to my Swedish ears. For example, it’s completely normal to say “kerrrrrrrma”, when saying the word “kerma” (“cream”).
In Cantonese and American English, there are similar challenges with expressiveness. But since I deeply wanted to sound like natives I embraced it. With Finnish, maybe I held back.
Reading-Heavy Learning Approach
This one comes up often as something you should avoid if you want a native-like accent.
Compared to my other languages, I had a much stronger emphasis on reading in Finnish. There were several reasons for this: lack of good Finnish resources being one. The other was that I wasn’t particularly interested in Finnish movies or podcasts. I was interested in the language for family reasons mainly and the culture, but more for interacting with natives than consuming media. Plus, I found reading a super engaging way to learn (read more about how I did this in Finnish in my post I Learned 100,000 Words in Finnish Using LingQ).
The problem wasn’t the reading. It was the lack of listening alongside reading. When you read a lot you end up with a huge vocabulary. But you have surface-feeling for words that doesn’t fully translate into speaking—rather than having truly acquired them through listening.
This is why my Spanish was different. An online Spanish teacher told me around 2.5 years in:
This was the result of prioritizing listening from day 1. It made me process Spanish through my ears, then unconsciously copying those phrases in my own speaking.
Many cite the fact that you subvocalize when reading, which makes you internally speak sounds using your native language's phonetics, leading to mispronunciation. But funnily enough, Finnish is hyper-consistent—everything is pronounced exactly as written.
Even though I used an app that has native voice text-to-speech I developed specific mistakes I didn’t notice for years. Less than a year ago, I discovered through AI feedback that I sometimes say "Ä" when it should be "E” (which I discussed in this section of my Langua AI Tutor Review). I also wasn't using the weight and emphasis that native speakers do. To me, these things felt unnatural or exaggerated, so I unconsciously avoided them.
Even though I recorded all my online Finnish lessons and listened back afterward, I couldn't detect these mistakes myself. I believe this was because of my lack of deliberate listening focus combined with the identity resistance I mentioned earlier.
Does this mean you need to avoid reading? I don’t think that’s necessary—at least not for everyone. If you take a “listening-first” approach you will process the language primarily through the sounds. Reading can then support that by exposing you to lots of vocabulary, which you then internalize through listening.
Reading doesn’t hurt pronunciation—it’s when we become too reading-heavy while neglecting listening that it becomes an issue.
4. What This Means for Your Language Learning
Early Sound Focus is a Must
Looking back at what worked and what didn't work across my 5 languages, the key takeaway is this: prioritize sounds from the beginning.
This doesn't mean you can't read or even speak early—but it means sound awareness should be central to whatever method you choose.
In Cantonese, I did 2-3 months of intensive sound practice right at the start. In English, I had decades of listening through TV shows & movies, plus years of refining pronunciation through conversations with native speakers. In Spanish, I made listening my top priority from day one and used materials that emphasized sounds in the beginning.
With Finnish, I did some sound focus but would have benefitted from doing more. I was honestly quite lazy and thought “I’ll get enough listening since I live in Finland and I’m around Finnish speakers all the time”. Turns out, that wasn’t the case. My reading-heavy approach without the listening to balance it made my pronunciation suffer.
Right now with Korean, I'm being more intentional. I'm taking my time to really listen to how the language sounds. I’m not focused on reading—not because I couldn’t, but because I’m choosing to save it for later to focus on other things since I’m still in the very beginning stages (read more about how I’m learning Korean in my 30 days of Korean update post)
The takeaway: Whether you speak from day 1, take a silent period, read early, or avoid reading altogether—make sure you're doing deliberate sound work early on. Listen actively. Mimic. Record yourself. Pay attention to how the language sounds, not just what it means.
That's what I wish I'd done more consistently with Finnish.
Embrace the Culture
Even if the culture feels alien to you and how people speak feels “wrong”, just go with it. Keep an open mind. In the beginning, developing good pronunciation is honestly a lot about acting. You need to pretend and ‘play the role’ of being Finnish, German, or Japanese.
There might be challenges standing in the way of that—I get that. There are personal things that are more complicated than just following advice from a blog post. But the important thing is awareness.
Maybe you’re resisting parts of the culture without even realizing it?
Find Your Path (Don’t Be Dogmatic About it)
Decisions like “Speak from day one” or take a vow to have a “Silent Period” often feel artificial to me. Instead of deciding based on principles, go with what feels natural to you and your circumstances.
Right now, I’m having a silent period in Cantonese. Not because I decided on it. I’m just focusing heavily on listening and I don’t have native speakers around where I live. Also, I’m currently not taking online lessons in the language (though I will eventually get back into that). However, If I bump into someone from Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia or southern China, I will definitely speak Cantonese with them. So it’s not a matter of principle, but a matter of my current focus.
Here are some suggestion:
Speak early if: You need it (living/working abroad), it motivates you, or opportunity exists.
Focus more on input if: You're learning remotely, want to focus on comprehension first, or that's just what feels right in this season of your learning.
Hybrid approaches work too: Seasons of speaking-focus, seasons of listening-focus.
No matter what approach you take, make listening the largest percentage of your learning.
Bad Habits Aren't Permanent
Despite what some might say, nothing is set in stone and bad habits can be fixed. There’s no perfect path where you download the language without mistakes along the way. Not even children learn this way—they adjust their pronunciation along the way. Instead of avoiding mistakes, embrace them and learn from them.
While it’s possible that waiting to speak might result in fewer bad habits (though not guaranteed), who cares? You probably had some meaningful conversations in the meantime that people waiting to speak missed out on.
Even if your pronunciation isn’t where you’d like it to be, it’s not too late to change. Sometimes we have to fix pronunciation errors in our native language too. Because of this, my Finnish pronunciation errors and accent never concerned me. I just work on them intentionally and adjust as I go.
Your Accent Will Improve WITH Your Level
While a solid foundation is important, don’t expect to have a native accent when you’re still beginner (or even intermediate) in other areas of your language. Your pronunciation will improve consistent with your overall level. As your listening comprehension deepens and your intuitive sense of the language develops, pronunciation refinements come naturally. Just be patient with the process.
People might notice you’re foreign, and it might not be that you’re pronouncing any of the sounds wrong, but that your rhythm or cadence is different from native speakers. These are very nuanced details that tend to come later in the learning process.
My Spanish pronunciation has a good foundation and in my opinion no major issues. But that it doesn’t mean I sound like a native speaker. But the deeper I go, the more refinement happens.
Even though I have no noticeable accent in English, my accent hasn’t always been at my current level. Years ago, I talked to an American musician who complimented my pronunciation and that he couldn’t hear I wasn’t American. I told him that I still have some tiny things that might give me away. We talked a bit and then he said: “oh yeah, I can hear it now”. He pointed out that I pronounced the word “phases” more with an “s”-sound rather than with more of a “z”-sound (“phazez”) like an American would. Realizing that, it helped me refine my pronunciation further.
5. Conclusion
Ensuring good pronunciation isn’t as simple as waiting to read or having a silent period. It’s not only about listening a lot but HOW you listen and what you notice.
It’s not about finding the ‘perfect method’ and trying to avoid mistakes. Different approaches can all work:
Intensive mimicry training for months (like Idahosa Ness’s The Mimic Method)
Speaking, even reading, from day 1 (with deliberate sound practice—my Cantonese/Spanish approach)
Massive listening before speaking (silent period approach)
What doesn't work is ignoring sound awareness and hoping it'll sort itself out through exposure alone—that's what happened with my Finnish. Sound focus needs to be central to whatever method you choose, and being aware of where your cognitive bandwidth is going.
While I care about pronunciation, I'm definitely not a perfectionist about it. It's not some kind of 'badge of honor' or performance. It just makes speaking more enjoyable, easier to be understood, and helps you feel part of the culture.
Questions to Ask Yourself
As you think about your own language learning, consider:
Where is your cognitive bandwidth going? Are you in survival mode trying hard to understand, or do you have space to notice pronunciation details?
Are you getting pure listening practice? Conversations are valuable, but they're different from purely listening where 100% of your attention can go to hearing how people speak.
Do you want to sound like them? Are you willing to embrace the culture's way of speaking, even if it feels exaggerated or "too much"?
Are you reading more than listening? If so, you don’t need to stop reading, but make sure to prioritize listening more.
These aren't rules—they're just things to be aware of as you learn.
For specific step-by-step techniques on improving your pronunciation, check out my guide: How to Fix Your Accent and Sound Like a Native [in 4 Steps].
What about you? What has had the biggest impact on your pronunciation? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear what you've noticed in your own learning.
Related posts:
The 5 biggest pronunciation MYTHS you need to stop worrying about
Langua AI Tutor Review: Best AI for Speaking Fluency? (discussing how I noticed and how I’m working on fixing some of my Finnish mistakes)
