What word do you think is the hardest to pronounce???

[AlainK]

Thanks to the site having been updated, I can read more messages now

Like many foreigners, I find "clothes" difficult (eshpeshially on Monday mornings), but it took me even more time to say things like "thirty-three packets of crisps" in an acceptable way.
"Crisps" is very hard for French pupils, those who don't say "crips" are a small minority...
Of course, chips is no prob.

Alain

[ravit]

Hi everyone
I'm new here and I find it really interesting to see what you consider as a hard word to pronounce. I'm going to be an English teacher soon and I really wanted to know if anyone gave you at your school any pronunciation lessons because we had none.
I find the words "worth" and "world" hard to pronounce, and in generally the combination of "th" inside a word is frustrating!!
How I envy those native speakers!!!!!!!
Good Luck to you all
Ravit

[Pride]

Heya everyone! I found this topic so interesting, I had to join. :) Found this by googling. :p

As a finnish person, I think I've kind of an advantage for pronouncing in overall. I mean, we have couple letters that not that many languages have.

In addition to normal vowels we have two freaky ones Ä and Ö (capitals)

Ä pronounces like "Angry"

Ö prounces like "Earth"

Also we have this NG-thing that pronounces just like aNGry.

...not to mention that we pronounce our alphabeth differently than native US/UK do. Eg. your A pronounces like our E. And your E pronounces like our I and your I is quite close to our A (just take the first part of the ..."sound")

Well anyways - it's relatively easy for a finnish to speak and pronounce english (US/UK) "correctly", but it's REALLY hard for the native speakers to pronounce finnish right - it seriously takes time.


Hardest english words I find to pronounce are - my tongue just ...stucks! :)

Invulnerability - the most difficult for sure!
Individuals
Interpreted
Implementation
Participate
Prejudice
Recognize (since our A-E-I - I get mixed up!)

And just imagine using these midst sentences - dear god.. :)

The participated individuals are recognized without any prejudice although they interpreted word "invulnerability" without any hesitation in most of the implementation.

Please comment something. :)

--Floridan broileri!

[juacro]

FOCUS...it is not very hard to pronunce, but it is dangerous to misspronunce it in a serious situation

[Hayseed]

Originally Posted by Pride

it's relatively easy for a finnish to speak and pronounce english (US/UK) "correctly"

Who told you that?
You have the perception that since English is "relatively easy", then you must be speaking and pronouncing it "correctly". As a native English speaker, I can assure you that Finnish speakers have no advantages over speakers of any other language. I hear the usual missing "th" sounds, the inability to hear and implement many of the "lax" vowels, as well as incorrect stress/timing/rhythm, and missing articles among other things.

I`m attempting to learn German, and find the pronunciation fairly straightforward (except for the "ch" sound). I wouldn`t be so presumptuous as to think I pronounce it "correctly" though. That can only be judged accurately by a native speaker, don`t ya think?

[light]

I can say aberystwyth in one breath :)

[juacro]

Originally Posted by Hayseed

Who told you that?
You have the perception that since English is "relatively easy", then you must be speaking and pronouncing it "correctly". As a native English speaker, I can assure you that Finnish speakers have no advantages over speakers of any other language. I hear the usual missing "th" sounds, the inability to hear and implement many of the "lax" vowels, as well as incorrect stress/timing/rhythm, and missing articles among other things.
I`m attempting to learn German, and find the pronunciation fairly straightforward (except for the "ch" sound). I wouldn`t be so presumptuous as to think I pronounce it "correctly" though. That can only be judged accurately by a native speaker, don`t ya think?

sorry, but it is not what I meant...I wrote FOCUS to give a sample of the hardest words to pronunce. My intention is to show the similarity with the expressions "fuck us" or "fuck you". I´m a Spanish speaker and those words represent confussions sometimes....

[snehitudu09]

hai to every one

first of all i have problems with the englishj pronunciation

so i need to develop it first

thanks

[Rafael]

Hello, for me it is not a word, But the title of a movie called THE NEXT BEST THING, it is so hard for me to pronounce it well.

[SunnyDay]

I'm a native speaker, so all these words don't give me trouble. But what IS hard for me is saying "anonymity". I keep either adding syllables or leaving out syllables.