> Being able to pronounce the basic sounds correctly has a huge impact on how native speakers perceive your language skills, even if you're not very advanced in the language.
replyThat's true, but it counsels against trying to develop better pronunciation early.
If you sound like a native despite having just started to learn the language, people will naturally conclude that you are mentally retarded.
That's better than locking in a strong accent the rest of your life. Once you learn to speak a language, it's very difficult to fix your accent.
replyThere are two problems with this:
reply(1) It doesn't get any more difficult to fix your accent. But most people won't, because there's virtually no benefit to doing it.
This is related to
(2) Once you learn to speak a language, you're not at any risk of people thinking that you can't speak it, even if you speak with a strong accent.