Speech Sounds by First Language
Hand-curated guidance tables for five first-language backgrounds: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, and Korean. Each table lists the English sound contrasts that most often need extra practice, linked to minimal-pair lists and practice word generators.
Word lists generated from a fixed pronunciation dataset — not therapy advice. Consult a certified speech-language professional for assessment or treatment decisions.
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About these tables
The tables are hand-written summaries of standard descriptive observations about sound inventories in second-language phonology. They describe LANGUAGES, not people: individual accents vary widely, and none of these rows predicts what any speaker will find hard. Linked word lists come from the current data release (v1/2026.07-lexical.6) and apply the offensive-word display policy unconditionally.
These are word lists and reference tables, not therapy advice or a pronunciation assessment.