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?
For turkish speakers generally, its every single multi-syllable word. In turkish, syllables arent stressed and most syllables are pronounced equally. And since in english stress is very important for pronunciation, my peers’ (and teachers in schools) speech is unintelligable
Sheet / Sheep / Shit / Ship
My friend has a hard time pronouncing ‘teeth’. Just comes out sounding like ‘tits’
I’d suggest “choppers” but it would probably come out “knockers.”
“sorry”. I mainly use English in my daily life and at work for several years now, but cannot make it not sound like “sowy” or roll “r” too much.
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.
the things i remember struggling with were getting the stress right and hyperforeignisms (that is, concentrating so hard on getting the difficult “w” and “th” sounds that i would pronounce “v” as “w” and “s” as “th” by accident. i was once asked if my native language had a “v”, because that was the one i seemed to be struggling with)
Entrepreneur
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.
Don’t feel bad, everyone. English pronunciation IS difficult, though through tough thorough thought, you can do it!
Rural and squirrel
Rural juror.
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.”
Skwrl - no vowels
Sk-wirrel is how it usually breaks down in my head
‘Anthropomorphous’ is still like a tongue twsiter for me
I mean as a first language speaker, it is.
English is my first language but saying “edited it” drives me crazy.
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.
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.
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.
You can find “leftenant” as a normal spelling in older texts. No one is sure why.
right?
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.
