Ear Training One key aspect of improving pronunciation is having good ears. I thought good ears were born with. They are gifts for some lucky people. I am bad at distinguishing slightly different sounds, so I always thought I wasn't born with gifted ears. I can live with that, because everyone is gifted in different ways. Today when I was reading a book called "Fluent Forever" by Gabriel Wyner, I realized that my ears hadn't received any formal training in my life. No matter how gifted someone is, if he doesn't train himself, he won't excel. In order for me to have better ears, I need to have some proper training for them. One possible training suggested by the author is hearing one of two close sounds, making a choice after hearing the sound, and getting instant feedback about the correctness of the choice. In that way, our brain will become more sensitive to those slight sound difference. I will definitely give it a shot and see how I progress. It is another good example of using feedback to build up awareness. Without a strong self-awareness, it will be almost impossible to make significant improvements.