Wednesday, 14 October 2026 Updated 9 min ago
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Stop making sense: focus on sounds to help learn a language, study suggests

Research shows that the best linguists process unfamiliar foreign speech sounds more like non-speech sounds If you want to get really good at French, Arabic…

Image accompanying the story: Stop making sense: focus on sounds to help learn a language, study suggests
Image: Photograph: Dimitrios Symeonidis/Alamy · via The Guardian

The Guardian reports: Research shows that the best linguists process unfamiliar foreign speech sounds more like non-speech sounds If you want to get really good at French, Arabic or Hungarian, don’t start with rote learning vocabulary and grammar, focus on how they sound instead, research suggests.

A new study of how humans learn modern languages has found that the brains of the most talented linguists hear foreign terms as random noise, not words.

This science story centres on France. Names and organisations mentioned in the coverage include French, Arabic and Hungarian.

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Key details

Location
France · Europe
Reported by
The Guardian
First reported
Key names
French, Arabic, Hungarian
Section
Science

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