Anita wanted to improve her English pronunciation for a long time. However, she always procrastinated in practice because it was mentally exhausting. She was trying to deal with it.

At a language learning event, Anita met three Americans named David, Isaac, and Michael, whose Mandarin pronunciation was excellent. They were sharing their methods to improve pronunciation.

David said he had joined a Chinese speech competition. His Chinese teacher had drilled his pronunciation for one month. That indeed helped, although he was burned out and almost gave up. Then Isaac mentioned he would constantly imitate one Chinese sentence for two or three hours. Whenever he felt tired, he would hit his thighs to keep awake.

Michael told Anita his Chinese teacher would make him repeat the whole sentence if he mispronounced anything. Michael felt annoyed and frustrated at first. It felt he had to cook all dishes again just because one of them was too hot or cold. Eventually Michael appreciated his strict teacher, because he made profound progress.

After hearing about their practice experiences, Anita figured there seemed to be no easy way or shortcuts to improve pronunciation. As the saying goes, no pain, no gain.