Phonetics was invaluable for me, as I was studying French and Linguistics. It really makes you listen extremely carefully, and helps no end in reproducing the sounds you have heard, which may not exist in English. When you have to record in IPA some sounds in, say, Hindi, you start to notice the reflexed plosives and can then correctly pronounce them. We were also shown X-ray films of people's mouths. It's horrifying just how enormous the tongue actually is! I used to go into their Phonetics 'lab' and watch Africans on film speaking all the myriad languages, and try to copy them. Little did I know that one day I would meet my dear husband (who speaks Malinke, a Senoufo language) and thus have my very own 'subject speaker' to study!