Major problems in pronouncing English: A case study at the University of Dalat

ives, the sampling of the study was chosen randomly in order 
for each sample to be relatively fair. Due to the time constraint, 210 English-major freshmen were asked to 
participate in the study. All of the participants, who were between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, already 
completed 30 periods of the course named English Pronunciation Practice. With a sample size of 210 
students and 95% at confidence level, the confidence interval was 4.03. (The figures were calculated based 
on the guide in the website of  
3.2. Data collection instrument 
 The research data were collected through a pronunciation speaking test with 140 English words 
containing different vowels and consonants in English. This test was considered appropriate because it 
covered most of the sounds that the students have learned in their pronunciation course. All of 210 
participants took turns to read through 140 prepared words and their performances were recorded for later 
analysis. In order to figure out significant pronunciation errors of the participants, the software 
“Wavesurfer” (version 1.8.8p5, 2013) was used to visualize the sounds made by each participant in 
comparison with the sounds pronounced by an American native speaker who has been teaching English 
pronunciation for 11 years in Dalat city. 
4. Findings 
 The English sounds pronounced by the participants were extracted from their recordings of the 
pronunciation speaking test. The software “Wavesurfer” (version 1.8.8p5, 2013) significantly contributed 
to provide visual data for this study. After 210 participants had had their English pronunciation recorded, 
the sounds were visualized and compared with the standard sounds pronounced by Paul Olivier (Ph.D.), an 
American teacher who has been teaching English pronunciation for 11 years in Dalat city. Based on the 
differences in the visualized sounds, English-major students’ errors of pronouncing English could be 
recognized and analyzed in details. Here is an example with the word “was”. 
Figure 1. Native speaker’s pronunciation of 
“was” 
Figure 2. Students’ pronunciation of “was” 
(no final consonant) 
Figure 3. Students’ pronunciation of “was” (/ɒ/ instead of /ə/) 
(Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
 After having visualized all tested sounds, the participants’ pronunciation errors were finally 
synchronized into four different categories as follow: 
4.1. The omission of final consonants 
 Among 210 participants, 179 freshmen making up 85.2% of the total participants had to encounter 
the challenges of final consonant which never existed in Vietnamese. /f/ as in “deaf”, /s/ as in “happiness” 
and /dʒ/ as in “age” are typical examples of this error type. 
Figure 4. Native speaker’s pronunciation of 
/dʒ/ as in “age” 
Figure 5. Students’ pronunciation of /dʒ/ as in 
“age” (no final consonant /dʒ/) 
(Otput extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
 Noticeably, the word “moved” seemed to be easy but it was not pronounced correctly in the test 
because many participants omitted the final sound /d/ as illustrated in Figure 7. 
Figure 6. Native speaker’s pronunciation of /d/ 
as in “moved” 
Figure 7. Students’ pronunciation of /d/ as in 
“moved” (no final consonant /d/) 
(Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
4.2. The mispronunciation of consonant clusters 
 In this study, 31 out of 210 freshmen (14.8% of the total participants) eliminated the first sound /g/ 
in the initial consonant cluster /gr/ of “great” and the same number of students wrongly made the cluster 
/pl/ for “player”. A great number of English-majoring students dropped the final sound of consonant 
clusters, e.g. there were 158 cases of omission of /t/ in “first”, “last” and “kept”; 179 students completely 
omitted /ts/ of the cluster /nts/ in “instruments”. 
Figure 8. Native speaker’s pronunciation of /pl/ as 
in “player” 
Figure 9. Students’ pronunciation of /pl/ as in 
“player” (/f/ instead of /pl/) 
 (Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
Figure 10. Native speaker’s pronunciation of /ts/ as 
in “instruments” 
Figure 11. Students’ pronunciation of /ts/ as in 
“instruments” (no consonant cluster /ts/) 
Figure 12. Students’ pronunciation of /ts/ as in “instruments” (no final consonant /s/) 
(Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
4.3. The substitution of certain sounds 
Again, the word “moved” was pronounced incorrectly because there were 43 out of 210 participants 
substituting the consonant cluster /fd/ for /vd/ as illustrated in Figure 13. 
Figure 6. Native speaker’s pronunciation of /d/ as in 
“moved” 
Figure 13. Students’ pronunciation of /d/ as 
in “moved” (/f/ instead of /vd/) 
(Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
The sound /dʒ / as in “Germany”, for instance, was changed into /g/ and /tʃ/ by 83 and 191 participants 
respectively. Similarly, 58 out of 210 participants replaced the sounds /ð/ as in “other”, becoming /d/ 
instead; 135 out of 210 participants substituted /tw/ for /tʃ/when pronouncing the word “twelve”. Besides, 
the palatal /ʃ/ as in “shall” was replaced with the alveolar /s/ by 144 participants. 
4.5. The mispronunciation of English vowels 
 In terms of vowel pronunciation, the vowel /u: / as in “soon” was mispronounced as /sɒn/ by 46 out 
of 210 participants. The word “opera” was also mispronounced as /ɔ:perɑ:/ instead of /'ɒprə/. The two 
figures below showed a difference between native pronunciation and Vietnamese pronunciation for the 
word “opera”. 
Figure 14. Native speaker’s pronunciation of 
“opera” 
Figure 15. Students’ pronunciation of 
“opera” (wrong vowels) 
(Output extracted from Wavesurfer 1.8.8p5) 
5. Discussion and implications 
With the descriptive analysis in this qualitative study, it could then come up to the conclusion about 
possible reasons for learners’ pronunciation errors. Firstly, the above errors originated from learners’ lack 
of phonetic knowledge. Because all of the participants were freshmen who hardly studied English Phonetics 
and Phonology at high schools, they had no idea of the speech organs with articulators, air stream, vocal 
vibration, and aspiration. As Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2007) state in their book, English vowels are 
classified according to four criteria: tongue position, tongue height, lip rounding, and tenseness (pp. 236-
240). However, freshmen were unfamiliar with these linguistic terms. Subsequently, there were vowels that 
seemed undoubtedly tough for them to pronounce, leading to cases of vowel mispronunciation in this study. 
Secondly, unavoidable errors happened due to the incompatibleness between the two languages. Because 
some of the English sounds such as /θ/, /ð/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/ have no exact equivalents in Vietnamese, they were 
really difficult for the participants to make the correct sounds. Hence, many participants tended to replace 
the difficult sounds with what they were much more accustomed to. Moreover, in Vietnamese, there rarely 
exist two or three consonants combining together to create a cluster, resulting in a fact that the English-
major freshmen at Dalat University hardly used to pronounce complex consonant clusters. Finally, the 
errors were caused by a negative transference to balance with Vietnamese learners’ speech organs. As 
commented by Ehrlich and Avery (1992), the mispronunciations of words by non-native speakers reflect 
the influence of the sounds, rules, stress, and intonation of their native language. Although Vietnamese and 
English share similarities in sound segments and spelling, the way native speakers pronounce English 
sounds is completely different from the Vietnamese way. Consequently, language learners usually had 
problems with the movements of their tongue towards the articulators due to the deeply rooted way of 
pronouncing Vietnamese words. Therefore, a great number of participants would prefer to ignore some 
difficult sounds rather than try to pronounce them in a correct manner. 
 No matter how generalized the study tried to be, there were some certain limitations. First, the study 
samples should have been more various in terms of ages and language levels as the study participants were 
only freshmen. Second, when the participants got their pronunciation tests recorded, they just approached 
the pronunciation course for only 30 periods, which was considered rather limited. Third, the pronunciation 
tests were still at word level and the words were out of real contexts of applying the language into oral 
communication. Finally, it was not enough satisfactory to pose the errors of pronunciation without 
suggesting any solutions to improve students’ pronunciation of English. Thus, it is necessary to conduct 
another study in this area for the purpose of recommending useful programs and strategies for English-
majoring students at Dalat University to enhance their English pronunciation. 
6. Conclusion 
 English pronunciation is clearly a challenge for students majoring in English at the University of 
Dalat. On average, over two thirds of the participants taking part in the study were not successful in correctly 
pronouncing words containing English vowels and consonants. Four remarkable errors were the omission 
of final consonants, the mispronunciation of consonant clusters, the substitution of certain sounds, and the 
mispronunciation of English vowels. Significantly, the errors were considered to originate from the 
learners’ lack of phonetic knowledge, the incompatibleness between the two languages and a negative 
transference to balance with Vietnamese learners’ speech organs. Although the research topic is not new-
fangled, this study could systematically and clearly point out important errors in the pronunciation of 
English-majoring students. Therefore, this research paper could give reliable foundation for the following 
studies focusing on effective methods to improve students’ pronunciation. 
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NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ NGHIÊM TRỌNG TRONG PHÁT ÂM 
TIẾNG ANH: NGHIÊN CỨU THỰC TẾ 
TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC ĐÀ LẠT 
Tóm tắt: Nhận thức được rằng ngữ âm chính là một trong những yếu tố quan trọng ảnh hưởng đến khả 
năng giao tiếp của người học, nghiên cứu này tập trung phân tích các lỗi phát âm của sinh viên Ngôn 
ngữ Anh và tìm ra các lý do có thể khiến sinh viên phát âm sai. Khách thể nghiên cứu là 210 sinh viên 
chuyên ngành tiếng Anh năm thứ nhất tại Trường Đại học Đà Lạt. Dữ liệu được thu thập từ các bài kiểm 
tra ngữ âm và bản ghi âm giọng đọc của sinh viên được phân tích và mô tả với phần mềm Wavesurfer. 
Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy bốn lỗi phát âm cơ bản của sinh viên là không phát âm các phụ âm cuối, 
phát âm sai các cụm phụ âm, thay thế một số âm bằng những âm không chính xác và phát âm sai các 
nguyên âm. Những lỗi sai kể trên một phần là do người học thiếu kiến thức về ngữ âm tiếng Anh, một 
phần là do sự không tương thích về hệ thống âm thanh giữa hai ngôn ngữ và một phần là do ảnh hưởng 
của phương thức cấu tạo từ trong tiếng Việt đã tác động đến cách phát âm tiếng Anh. 
Từ khóa: Vấn đề về ngữ âm, sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh, lỗi phát âm sai