English as a second language learners: what words were really hard for you to pronounce?

Just wait till you try “Lieutenant” in Britain or Canada.

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.

The delightful thing is that it works in reverse also: ask a native English speaker to pronounce "Eichhörnchen."

Or a French person.

Ends up as "skwiwwl" for me every time...

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."

odd, I never had an issue with WarChester sauce.

I know a kid who can't say these either but I didn't put together what it was before.

"sp" cluster can be hard. So can "sk" at the end of a word. Hence why you can get "axe" instead of "ask"

Of course, we have two th sounds just to make things more fun

But dutch people area native English speakers

You must say this out loud as an affirmation.

Pilots say tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

I never knew there was a difference, whoops

Two people scored the same after the first five. They were the... sixths.

It's a near miss of biting my tongue every time.

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.

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?

I'm having a whole cognitive dissonance moment because I could've sworn it was "anenome". I even studied this in college and have an ecology degree. Likely over the last twenty years I convinced myself that the common incorrect pronunciation is correct, but I immediately looked it up and then tried to rationalize that it was some sort of mandala effect. The simplest answer is that it's confabulation on my part, and I'm wrong.

Same goes for ' pocketed it'

And my first language is Dutch, but like to speak English

As a math teacher, I hate "sixth" or "sixths."

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.

ME TOO omg

I think many, many native speakers would struggle with those too so if you're at that level you're doing really well. Congrats!

Oh god yes

German?

Rural juror.

It's the names Korra and Larry put together.

*façade

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?

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....

So mostly you hate French :)

Queue is just the name of the letter "Q".

But it "kyoo" might not be an easy sound depending on your mother tongue

Schedule (sk- or sh-) differs between countries/regions. So you're good either way.

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…”

AGREED about English pronunciation, I don't think anybody truly understands

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

Does it sound like "bat" when you say "butt"?

It either rhymes with "nine" or with "fin" depending on the phase of the moon.

It gets easier if you understand that it's a latin word, not english

I struggled with that as a native english speaker at first

But now I realize the correct pronunciation sounds super cool

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 "au" is more common for networking in North America, and "oo" 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!

Roo-ter is usually British and former colonies. Row-ter is north America.

I mean as a first language speaker, it is.

eye-dee-uh

It was I, Dia.

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.

Definitely's spelling is easier if you recognize that the root word is finite. De-finite-ly.

It's not finate. That's not a word (unless it's some bullshit word no one ever uses).

I'd suggest "choppers" but it would probably come out "knockers."

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)

Schedule depends on where you'd like to blend into. You've got:

• skedjuhl
• sked-juul
• shed-juul
• shedj-yuu-uhl
• skedj-yuu-uhl

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.