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

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Archie

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Any short words beginning with letters TH and then followed by a word beginning with letter D.

For example ' I hate when they do that' causes problems with my tongue
 

tatoshka

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Jul 25, 2005
For me it has to be the "internet". Do you pronounce "t"? Also "comfortable" gives me trouble, i usually go with "comfy".
 

dangvietyen

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Jul 15, 2005
How to improve my listening skill of English?

Hi all, untill now i could not enhance myself in listening skill of English, please tell me how to improve this issue! Thank you for your help.
Yen
 

mahmood

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May 26, 2005
The problem is that I don't know if I am pronouncing a word correctly or not. When I don't know, How I can say that it is difficult or not. I tried one of these programs that check pronounciation but they don't work well yet.

But there are some words that I constantly forget their pronounciation.
the most frequent is "thesaurus". Now that I mentioned it I check it again at mariam webster web site.
 

Bishwanath Singh

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Sep 6, 2005
tdol said:
effect and affect- they basically sound the same. ;-)

Pronunciation of effect start with 'e' sound but affect start with 'a' sound. perhaps some feel difficulty pronunciencing them in hurry. :)
 

Bishwanath Singh

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Hi, untill now I could not enhance myself in English fluency, as English is my 2nd language for me. Please tell me how to improve this skill :cool: !
 

Angelasgf

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Sep 13, 2005
The hardest thing for me to pronounce is: "clothes & cloths".
Everything with "ths" as ending gives me a lot of problems!

I try very hard to disguise the fact that I'm not British but these words have me bury my head in shame most of the time. All the lovely Natives of this forum: do you maybe have tips on how to improve this?
 

Bishwanath Singh

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Bishwanath Singh said:
Hi, untill now I could not enhance myself in English fluency, as English is my 2nd language for me. Please tell me how to improve this skill :cool: !

Fluency is a matter of practice and you should read out some Novel text which is based on day-to-day conversation. After having read through any Noven, you must try to expain those events or matter described therein to friendts. This would certainly improve your english fluency.
 

Angelasgf

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Sep 13, 2005
Yes indeed, trying to explain something specific to another person in English is a good way to stretch your mind. Also: reading a new story or magazine article and trying to have a discussion about it. That way you will not only learn to think in English, but you can also learn from the person you are in discussion with.
 
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AlainK

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

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
 
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ravit

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Nov 5, 2005
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 :roll: 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

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Nov 14, 2005
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!
 
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juacro

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Oct 27, 2005
FOCUS...it is not very hard to pronunce, but it is dangerous to misspronunce it in a serious situation:oops:
 

Hayseed

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Nov 17, 2005
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Pride said:
it's relatively easy for a finnish to speak and pronounce english (US/UK) "correctly"

Who told you that? :roll:
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. :shock: That can only be judged accurately by a native speaker, don`t ya think? ;-)
 

juacro

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Oct 27, 2005
Hayseed said:
Who told you that? :roll:
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. :shock: 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

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Feb 24, 2006
hai to every one

first of all i have problems with the englishj pronunciation

so i need to develop it first

thanks
 

Rafael

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Feb 28, 2006
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

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Aug 13, 2005
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.
 
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