The urgency of the topic outlined in the article is explained by the increasing demand for qualified teachers who have a good command of a foreign language. The phonological competence of academic students who will become teachers of English in the future under the conditions of modern challenges and digital age is of great importance. The article provides a theoretical analysis of students’ phonetic complexities while learning a foreign language and the demand for improving students’ phonological competence in the learning environment. The analysis shows that interest in the topic of phonetic difficulties faced by students learning English is constantly growing. Thus, the purpose of the article is to research and analyze common phonetic difficulties faced by students learning English in the language environment and identify key aspects that affect constantly the acquisition of English by students studying university foreign language courses when their major is English, and what is more, they are future teachers of English for secondary schools in Ukraine. Moreover, the present investigation describes key factors that affect considerably the acquisition of the foreign language by students studying university foreign language courses namely Practical Phonetics, Theoretical Phonetics at Faculty of Foreign Languages of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University. The materials of this article may be of use to higher school lecturers and researchers who are interested in mastering phonological competence and developing their foreign language communicative competence as well.
 Keywords: phonological competence; phonetic difficulties; phonological awareness; phonetics; foreign language pronunciation; pronunciation skills; learning foreign language; language environment.