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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.
Worcestershire
omg "rcester" words are so hard
Don't feel bad, everyone. English pronunciation IS difficult, though through tough thorough thought, you can do it!
You must say this out loud as an affirmation.
Ask a German to pronounce “squirrel.”
The delightful thing is that it works in reverse also: ask a native English speaker to pronounce "Eichhörnchen."
Sheet / Sheep / Shit / Ship
Worcestershire sauce
English as my first language and I can’t get that one right either.
No one can.
It helps to break it up.
worce - ster - shire
"Worcestershire sauce is the worst."
"Thousand island is worster."
"'Worster'? Sure."
I say it wuss tuh sure
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
The number of native English speakers who can't pronounce "specific" and instead say "pacific" is too damn high.
Rural and squirrel
Rural juror.
30 Rock had some of the best wordplay I've ever seen in any show.
yeah, that and like Arrested Development 😂
I always pronounced “only” as “on-lie”. I heard other people say “only” and couldn’t understand what they meant.
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.
AGREED about English pronunciation, I don't think anybody truly understands
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…”
"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".
English is my first language but saying "edited it" drives me crazy.
ME TOO omg
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.
calapitter aww
I know, my wife would melt every time he said it.
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.
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.
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
texts, clothes. consonant clusters.
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."
I wouldn't say struggle, but I did wonder for a while how to pronounce "anemone".
Words starting with th- (th-fronting) and plurals ending in -ths, -sps, etc.
I personally am having a hard time with "overwhelmingly"