If English wasn’t your first language, maybe if you learned English later in life, were there any words that you had a really hard time learning how to pronounce? Do you think that had to do with the sounds made in your first language?
English is my first language but saying “edited it” drives me crazy.
Same goes for ’ pocketed it’
And my first language is Dutch, but like to speak English
Agree! I seem to add an extra “dedede” in there.
ME TOO omg
As a math teacher, I hate “sixth” or “sixths.”
For most new native English speakers, it’s Spaghetti (pisketty) and Elephant (efalent). For my son it was Caterpillar (calapitter). I struggled with pronouncing Uncomfortable. I wanted to say every syllable.
You would be accurate if you pronounced every syllable of the word uncomfortable. Americans are just lazy, not pronouncing every syllable. Nobody would look at you strangely if you pronounced every syllable of that word. It would just seem like you’re emphasizing HOW UNCOMFORTABLE you are if you pronounce every syllable of the word :-)
No, I mean that as a kid, I wanted to say every syllable, but I found it difficult. I could hear adults saying it the easy way, but I wanted to know the real word. I loved to read as a kid, and soaked up every word I could find.
calapitter aww
I have to perform a context switch between “v” and “w” sounds, so words and phrases that contain both (e.g: “very well”) sometimes end up with only “w” sounds. (My native language does not have a regular “W” sound)
But even after 20 years speaking it, English pronunciation is complete nonsense. Most of the time, you just need to memorize the words. Because trying to figure out how to say something, you also need to know if the word is borrowed from any other languages that use Latin alphabet, and then pronouce it pretending to speak that language. Simplest example: Mocha (moh-ka) and matcha (maht-cha). But there are countless borrowed words that don’t change spelling in English.
I once watched a German YouTuber talk about learning English and how quickly she improved when she started working in an English office because she _ had_ to. In the video she says one of the things she’s always had difficulty with but is now much better at and almost never slips up on now is vs and ws. Then, immediately afterwards in the next sentence she goes “now in this wideo…”
Words starting with th- (th-fronting) and plurals ending in -ths, -sps, etc.
Colonel.
Less of how hard it is to actually pronounce, more like how hard it is to believe it’s pronounced that way.
Worcestershire
It was spelled with an R in the past, and they tried to change it to an L (because that’s how it “properly” should be according to its origins), but only the spelling stuck, probably due to everyone being illiterate anyway.
Kernel
Just wait till you try “Lieutenant” in Britain or Canada.
You can find “leftenant” as a normal spelling in older texts. No one is sure why.
right?
When I was younger it was any word where an R is followed by an L. Girl, world, twirl… im better at them now tho
I know a kid who can’t say these either but I didn’t put together what it was before.
Idea. Still not sure if I rponounce the “ea” correctly…
eye-dee-uh
It was I, Dia.
The th sound is honestly a bit difficult. Three will end up sounding like either tree or free, but not three. Usually I just pronounce it as a slightly weird T. I have quite a Dutch accent anyways and that just something y’all will have to deal with ;p
Two people scored the same after the first five. They were the… sixths.
It’s a near miss of biting my tongue every time.
sixths-sevenths?
Learn to speak English with an Irish accent (like Lenin) and no one will bat an eye at you saying tree.
There are words I really
hatestruggle with…
Whirl, macabre, dairy, faux, chique.Most of these are French loans
So mostly
you hateFrench :)They just need to write what the heck they meant to say. :D
knowing how to spell definitely, and pronouncing drawer.
For others, in my accent drawer rhymes with door and or. All spelled differently to get the same sound. None of the three are spelled phonetically by the ‘rules’ of English. They should be drore, dore, and ore.
Genuine. I still wonder if I pronounced it correctly every time I use the word.
It either rhymes with “nine” or with “fin” depending on the phase of the moon.
The number of native English speakers who can’t pronounce “specific” and instead say “pacific” is too damn high.
“sp” cluster can be hard. So can “sk” at the end of a word. Hence why you can get “axe” instead of “ask”
Little kid me would agree about the difficulty with the “sp” cluster. “Spoon” came out as “psoon”.
Suh-poon is also reasonably common!
It if you speak Spanish, “Es-poon”!
For some reason I always trip up when saying “I appreciate it”
I feel like a lot of people just drop the “I a” and say “'preciate it!”, lol
(That’s assuming you’re using it like “thank you”, and aren’t just starting a sentence)
Routing (e.g. for cables or traces on a pcb). I’ve heard both over the years: as in cangaroo or the german Frau. But the latter might be a german mis pronounciation.
Which brings up two new questions. Is it German or german and mispronounciation or mis pronounciation or mis-pronounciation?
Roo-ter is usually British and former colonies. Row-ter is north America.
I thought this was more of a British-American pronunciation difference: I (English) generally say roo-ting, and I’ve only ever heard USians say row-ting (row like argument, not like rowing a boat).
Mispronunciation. “Mis” isn’t a word, but a prefix (or something) that gets attached to another word to modify it. Since it’s not its own word, it gets prepended to the root word (“pronounce” in this case) without a dash.
German would always have the capital. In English, proper nouns get capitalized. There’s an official list, I’d bet, but a good rule of thumb is that titles (books, movies), specific place names (Germany, London, Abbey Road), people’s names (Bob, Reiner), and “I” (but not “me” etc) are put into “Title Case”. (Title case wouldn’t be capitalized, I just typed it that way to demonstrate it)
I actually like a lot of the German capitalization rules. On the internet, a lot of people will be more casual with capitalization. Some people will capitalize “important words”, or things that aren’t proper nouns but have a different meaning than usual…but these kinds of things are improper.
As for routing (and router, and heck…route in general)…both are correct pronunciations of this “ou”. I think “oo” is more common for networking in North America, and “au” is more common in other English-speaking countries (the UK, Australia…).
As for “route” as in “Route 56”, I tend to hear and say both/either (I’m in North America).
Sorry it’s so inconsistent!
Very precise answer. Thanks, I’ve learned something.
I tie my mouth into knots trying to pronounce world without sounding overly posh.
I’ve heard “rug” is weird for many Europeans
