I think the IPA system is a great tool in language learning.
One big challenge in learning a foreign language is the sounds that don't exist in your native language. The vowel chart can help. The important thing is not to memorise the symbols, but to understand the principles of the production of the sounds.
The vowel chart has only three parameters:
- front-back
- close-open
- rounded-unrounded
Once you get this you can in theory produce any vowel. But it's not easy to learn. It took a long time before I understood these parameters (but I'm probably slow).
For instance Norwegian has a central or even back "a"-sound. Many languages have a more front "a"-sound, which I still find uncomfortable. For instance Spanish. Dutch has two different shades of "a" - both front and back, according to if the sound is long or short.
Polish has the /ɨ/ which is hard to get right, because I think it sounds more or less like /e/, but it is in fact very different.
Consonants can be even harder to get right, if you can't relate them to something.
Example: the /ɕ/ is a "voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative" and is used in some languages. How to produce it:
wikipedia wrote:- the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
- tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
- the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't learn a sound based on this description. I understood this sound only after learning that it's very similar to a sound that exists in Norwegian: /ç/ normally written "kj". By the way, the /ç/ is a rare sound in the world and some say that it's disappearing from Norwegian. Most young people can't pronounce it.