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 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…”
texts, clothes. consonant clusters.
Words starting with th- (th-fronting) and plurals ending in -ths, -sps, etc.
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?
I always thought it was amusing that both German and English have equally difficult words for those fuzzy little rodents. “Squirrel” and “eichhörnchen.”
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 personally am having a hard time with “overwhelmingly”
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 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
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.
