English as a second language learners: what words were really hard for you to pronounce?
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?
Colonel.
Less of how hard it is to actually pronounce, more like how hard it is to believe it's pronounced that way.
Just wait till you try “Lieutenant” in Britain or Canada.
right?
You can find "leftenant" as a normal spelling in older texts. No one is sure why.
Worcestershire
Kernel
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.
Ask a German to pronounce “squirrel.”
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.
"The". The "th" in "the" is the only sound in English I can think of that doesn't have a very similar counterpart in Dutch. The closest you could get using just Dutch phonemes would be "zuh" or "duh".
Of course, we have two th sounds just to make things more fun
But dutch people area native English speakers
When I was first learning as a kid, I used to pronounce three as tree. I actually got picked on a lot because of it, because middle schoolers are assholes
Pilots say tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet
I never knew there was a difference, whoops
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".
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.
It's a common one my brother! The F sound in free is made where your top teeth are on your bottom lips, and tongue is retracted. The th sound is when your tongue is resting on or just behind your top teeth, almost like you're smiling.
Also to add, a lot of native speaking adults also struggle with the th sounding words, generally due to local accents.
Corollary. Not only I can't say it out loud, I can't even form it properly with my inner voice.
English is my first language and I still mess up "pluralism" from time to time.
Facade as Fack-aid, is one.
*façade
In France certainly.
Some English speakers pronounce that the french way
Niche is another weird one bc in some contexts it is pronouched the french way in others, "nitch".
The squirrel's ecological "nitch".
Finding your niche in the job market....
I've never heard anyone of any native language pronounce it fack-aid? The English speakers I hear always say fuh-saad. Or are you saying that fack-aid is how you pronounce it and you struggle with fuh-saad?
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
I wouldn't say struggle, but I did wonder for a while how to pronounce "anemone".
Everyone has trouble with that one. There's even a joke about it in Finding Nemo. I don't imagine most English-speakers can spell it offhand.
I was listening to a best-selling author's recent audiobook, and the professional voice actress messed this one up. So you're in good company. Really, who can we blame but the Greeks?
That sounds like a universal truth if I ever heard one.
There are words I really hate struggle with...
Whirl, macabre, dairy, faux, chique.
So mostly you hate French :)
They just need to write what the heck they meant to say. :D
Most of these are French loans
I'm coming from a phonetic language... Anything else don't make sense. Tho I have not studied Chinese or Arabic so those should be interesting.
Queue, schedule, vehicle - struggles of my life lol
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?
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.
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).
The former is typical of British RP, and the latter is found in General American (though it varies regionally). So it really just depends on who you're taking to.
To your questions, I would use "German" and "mispronunciation".
"Subtle". I can not pronounce it in a way that it sounds different to "saddle".
Native. I say suttle. It's a dirty word from the spelling in fairness.
According to the Macmillan they are [ˈsʌt(ə)l] vs [ˈsæd(ə)l], so the vowel changes slightly, but it depends on the speaker; I'm not native but I say saddle with a more open "a". But they're otherwise almost identical to me (in the British pronunciation included in the dictionary I hear a "t" both times, in the American one a "d" both times - which is how I say it too)
Subtle is spelled weird, but rhymes with muddle. Do you also pronounce "mad" and "mud" the same way? With my accent they have the same first vowel sounds as saddle and subtle
Don't feel bad, everyone. English pronunciation IS difficult, though through tough thorough thought, you can do it!
I personally am having a hard time with "overwhelmingly"
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.
Rural and squirrel
Caveat
It gets easier if you understand that it's a latin word, not english
I think I was just pronouncing everything wrong for the first several years I was speaking English because I learnt English from books and never heard most words out loud. But I don't remember anything being physically difficult to pronounce in terms of emulating how it's said when I first hear it pronounced "correctly".
"Three" and "thread". Not because of the th, that's never been a problem (I learnt the basics very early in life when pronunciation was easy to learn), but because my mouth somehow wouldn't go from "th" to "r". It was only a few years ago when it suddenly clicked. Weirdly, I never had an issue saying "through" and "threat".
Everything was hard. Even now I can't speak or pronounce every word. The reason: in my country learning english means learning how to write right, speaking is not important. So yeah, you have to teach yourself by speaking with others, if you find other people who really want to improve how to pronounce right. Even now I feel chills when I remember how my english teacher pronounced Switzerland.
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)
Absolutely.
I've heard "rug" is weird for many Europeans
Idea. Still not sure if I rponounce the "ea" correctly...
eye-dee-uh
It was I, Dia.
"Lapel" was an interesting find. That and "development" really hammered in the importance of accentuation. I'm still unsure of what I want to do with "schedule". "Burger" sometimes sounds off when I say it.
Schedule depends on where you'd like to blend into. You've got:
Possibly more! I think the ones with two syllables sound most common/least specific to a dialect. SK is more American and SH is more UK.
I tie my mouth into knots trying to pronounce world without sounding overly posh.
congratulations
knowing how to spell definitely, and pronouncing drawer.
None of them, English is an amazing language. I pronounce stuff like a bro.