Role of pronunciation

One of the topics that I cover in my teaching practice is pronunciation and I find that people have very different opinions about it.
All my students who learn to speak Russian are so determined to make sure that they pronounce words properly whereas Russian students who learn to speak English are divided in their opinions. Some find it very important and learn variations of accents and some see it as a waste of time and regard vocabulary and grammar as the most important part.
Once I met a Frenchman whose vocabulary and grammar were faultless. It was, however, extremely difficult to understand what on earth he was saying :-). I was convinced he was speaking French some of the time. If your accent is very strong – it will work but it will make it very hard for native speakers or speakers of other languages but your own to understand you. One point, however, is that native English speakers are very used to hearing their language spoken by accents from all around the world and will usually understand you and have an idea what country you are from however strong your accent is.
As I practice teaching both my native Russian and English I find it amazing to see just how mirrored the problems and difficulties are. For instance, English speakers usually find it hard to work out differences between soft and hard consonants and Russian speakers usually find it hard not to soften consonants “when it feels right”.
As an example, Russian word “день” is often pronounced as “ден” by English speakers and most can hardly hear the difference. Russian speakers make mistakes such as in a word “speak” pronouncing letter P as a soft consonant.
Make sure to pay attention to such little nuances and you will see how much your pronunciation will improve.
I cover pronunciation in my work, including Puzzle-English which is aimed at Russian speakers who are in the process of learning English. I can’t tell you just how brilliant this website is – have a look yourself.