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?
I always pronounced “only” as “on-lie”. I heard other people say “only” and couldn’t understand what they meant.
‘Anthropomorphous’ is still like a tongue twsiter for me
I mean as a first language speaker, it is.
Don’t feel bad, everyone. English pronunciation IS difficult, though through tough thorough thought, you can do it!
[the]
Rural and squirrel
Oh god yes
German?
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.
English is my first language but saying “edited it” drives me crazy.
As a math teacher, I hate “sixth” or “sixths.”
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.
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”.
I personally am having a hard time with “overwhelmingly”
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.
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.
I’ve heard “rug” is weird for many Europeans
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”!
Worcestershire sauce
It helps to break it up.
worce - ster - shire
“Worcestershire sauce is the worst.”
“Thousand island is worster.”
“‘Worster’? Sure.”
English as my first language and I can’t get that one right either.
No one can.
Wuh ster shuh. I live in that county, it’s definitely over-hyped.
You don’t say the last ‘R’? I’ve always said it ‘woo - stur - sure’ or ‘wi - stur - sure,’ depending on how fast I say it.
I’m American though.
That’s because you’re American. That’s how you say it with an American accent. Like think about how Brits say “sure” vs how Americans say “sure”. Americans pronounce the R far more.
Oh, one really pronounces the ‘shuh’ part? I was told it’s just the first two syllables.
Just the first two syllables would be Worcester, which is also a place.
Colonel.
Less of how hard it is to actually pronounce, more like how hard it is to believe it’s pronounced that way.
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.
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?
Kernel
Worcestershire
