Do native English speakers learn how to pronounce a word by phonetics? Hello,there all. In Chinese, we have pinyin. And using pinyin to know how a word sounds is the way native Chinese speaker use. But, in English. Many native English have no idea about what is phonetics. So, how do native English speakers know how a word sounds? And, if learning phonetics is necessary for learning English, how could I do a self-study in phonetics. Thanks