Top Twenty Mispronounced Food Words in English

[MartinEnglish]

I've made a list here, if you can get these right it will make a big difference!

London English Classes

please add more if I've forgotten any of your "favourites"!

 

[charliedeut]

Hi Martin,

Just to let you know that, even though "ananás" is a word known in Spain, it's basically a crosswords one. In everyday conversation you'll hear people speak of "piña" instead.

charliedeut

PS: The only one food word you listed which I mispronounced was "salmon" (I had never even checked its correct pronunciation; I just assumed it was just a matter of placing the stress in the first syllable instead of in hte second, as in "salmón" in Spanish).

 

[Barb_D]

Why is fruit, juice, and salt on the list? How do people say those?

 

[MartinEnglish]

fruit gets rhymed with "feet" ("Freet")
juice - has a w appear in it and rhymes with piece ("jwiece")
salt - where the "sal" is like "sally"

 

[BobK]

Hi Martin,

Just to let you know that, even though "ananás" is a word known in Spain, it's basically a crosswords one. In everyday conversation you'll hear people speak of "piña" instead.

charliedeut

....

<sidebar>
Speaking of which, it is with great sadness that I have to report that in the UK I have never heard 'piña colada' as anything but /pi:nǝ.../. I blame that dreadful song! ;-)
</sidebar>

 

[MartinEnglish]

What other words would people add to the list? I'd be interested to hear suggestions from both teachers and students!

 

[charliedeut]

In Spain, people typically have a problem with "steak" (it'd usually be pronounced /stɪk/), "sugar" (/sʊgɒr/, no /ʃ/, and the final 'r' well marked, as is done in Spanish) and, as a rule, anything containing long vowels, like "tea" (/tɪ/, not /ti:/).

There are more, but I cannot remember more as of now. I'll try to update the list as words come to my mind.

charliedeut

 

[BobK]

In Spain, people typically have a problem with "steak" (it'd usually be pronounced /stɪk/)...

And there's often what's known in the trade as 'an epenthetic vowel', making it /ə'stɪk/ or /ə'stek/. This happens with many consonant clusters starting with s. (I was a salesman in Spain for, among other magazines, 'Motor Sport' - in my misspent youth. In order to be understood I had to learn to call it something like [mo'tor e'spor];-) This is common in Spain (E-spaña). But Spanish isn't the only language affected: the acute accent on French é marks the dropping of an s - Eng 'state'/Fr état etc, and elsewhere - Smyrna/Ismirna).

b

 

[MartinEnglish]

yeah, steak is a good one

 

[Tdol]

Leicester cheese :shock:

 

[charliedeut]

And there's often what's known in the trade as 'an epenthetic vowel', making it /ə'stɪk/ or /ə'stek/. I was about to edit the post, mentioning this "initial 'e' feature", but I see I'm late ;-) This happens with many consonant clusters starting with s. (I was a salesman in Spain for, among other magazines, 'Motor Sport' - in my misspent youth. In order to be understood I had to learn to call it something like [mo'tor e'spor];-) This is common in Spain (E-spaña. But Spanish isn't the only language affected: the acute accent on French é marks the dropping of an s - Eng 'state'/Fr état etc, and elsewhere - Smyrna/Ismirna).

b

Thanks, Mr. Harmless Drudge! ;-)

 

[BobK]

:up: And, on similar gounds (re post #10), Double Gloucester. ;-)

b

 

[MartinEnglish]

aha !Red lie sester!

 

[charliedeut]

Another common misrponounced food word (in Spain at least) is "pear" /'piar/ or even /'piar/ is what you'll hear more often than not.

 

[emsr2d2]

And that famous British national dish "feesh 'n ships".