One thing I've noticed from teaching Arabic to non-native speakers is that pronunciation and listening are more connected than many learners realize.
When you learn to pronounce a letter, you should ‘not’ just imitate the sound. You should understand where it's produced, where your tongue is, and how the airflow works.
Why?
Because when you become more aware of how a sound is produced, you may also become better at recognizing it when someone else says it.
Example:
Let’s take English for an example and use a stereotype about an Arabic speaker’s ‘’accent’’ when learning English.
Sentence: there are a lot of people --> there are a lot of ‘beoble’
As a native English speaker, you will catch the difference and correct it. How?
It’s not ‘b’ it’s ‘p’, and you’ll move your mouth accordingly to show how the ‘p’ sound is accurately produced. Right? and Why? .... Because you ‘know’ where it comes from.
Similarly for an Arabic learner:
The letters س and ص can be confusing, for example. س matches the usual ‘s’ in English, but where does ص comes from?
Believe it or not, the same place!
They share the same Place of Articulation, which is Alveolar, but differ in what we call the Manner of Articulation. س is produced with slight closure of teeth, and relaxed tongue. While ص moves the tongue backwards to touch the alveolar ridge behind the front teeth.
I've put together the full Arabic-English IPA chart for my students. If you'd like a free copy, drop a comment or send me a DM!
In Conclusion:
Simply listening repeatedly isn't always enough. Learning to feel the differences between sounds can give you another way to train your ear.