We’ve got plenty of pronunciation tips to make it easier. The increasingly popular quinoa is actually pronounced "keen-wah. Last week, we shared a photo on Facebook listing the 10 hardest French words to pronounce. Quinoa 6. After all, there are words spelled completely differently than they actually sound, multiple words that sound the same but mean totally different things, and complex grammar rules that still make our heads spin. Temperature 20. When you say the word, you want to pronounce it like a popcorn "kernel.". There's no doubt about it, German can be a challenge for language learners. Menu. Conference Chairs Rural 17. Have you ever wondered how to pronounce “armadillo” in Spanish? A new book predicts she'll "be the last Queen of England.". She’s also a language enthusiast who grew up bilingual and had an early love affair with books. The most difficult words to pronounce in the English language revealed – as well as the world’s favourite English tongue-twisters. Stay with us if you want to solve the problem once and for all! Yes, those spiral-shelled mollusks commonly found on the beach are "konk" shells. Sometimes, getting used to an unfamiliar sound is truly a matter of muscle memory. Follow these simple guidelines for pronouncing Spanish words, and you’ll be a pro in no time. Besides that, however, Hindi has some challenging differences in terms of grammar, pronunciation and writing. This one word speaks louder than you realize. While Brits might not have as much trouble with this one, most Americans and non-native English speakers agree that Worcestershire is one of the most difficult words to pronounce. We asked the Talk in French community what are the French words that they are having a hard time saying… And here are the results. Admittedly, these following possibilities were selected from the point of view of an English speaker. So, onomatopoeia should roll off the tongue rapidly with a soft "t" and "p.", When we talk about something happening after someone's death, we say that it happened posthumously. Rather than try to boil it down to one definitive “most difficult word to pronounce,” we might have to look at a few examples from a number of languages (and admit that we’re looking at this from the perspective of Anglophones). Another hard-to-pronounce word that refers to a hard-to-explain figure of speech, synecdoche refers to using a part of something to refer to a whole (e.g. Well, the pronunciation of the word colonel has to do with the word's French and Italian translations. Enter your email address to get the best tips and advice. Exhibit A: “choir.”. Ignominious Squirrel 12. However, to make it easier to pronounce, its sound is changed to 종뉴. You might want to start practicing these tongue twisters that are almost impossible to pronounce. Most foreign people pronounce the ‘g’ in ‘ng’ as a hard letter ‘g’ instead of the ‘ng’ as combination. Bestlifeonline.com is part of the Meredith Health Group. French pronunciation can be hard for non-native speakers, as this video proves. BASIQ 2021. She has mostly proved herself as a New Yorker, and she can introduce herself in Swedish thanks to Babbel. When you hear anemone, most often it's because of sea anemones, which are invertebrates with long, bright clusters of tentacles. French culture Jun 12, 2014. The word—which refers to a petty officer in charge of hull maintenance—is not pronounced "boats-wain." This obviously creates a mess of pronunciation and understanding. Ignominious is a great word to use when you want to refer to someone as dishonorable—just be careful not to disgrace yourself by mispronouncing it. Colonel 2. How to say foreign in English? Worcestershire. Number of native speakers: 260 million Grammatical concepts: 3/5 Language family: 3/5 Sounds and tones: 3/5 Writing system: 4/5 Cultural distance: 3/5 Language resources: 1/5 Hindi is highly phonetic, which means it’s spelled the way it sounds – score! One Reddit user opened up this can of worms, and after more than 5,000 submissions, the Reddit community came up with this list of “10 most difficult English words to pronounce”: If we expand our inquiry to every other language in the world, the options (and the level of subjectivity) will only increase further. Often times the difficult words to pronounce for non-native English speakers are those that are spelled completely different from how they are pronounced. Ignominious 13. Or how to roll the tricky R? Don't feel bad if you've been mispronouncing some of these tricky words. Culture 10 German words non-Germans can't pronounce. Isthmus 10. You can master the hardest German words to pronounce—and in doing so, you’ll become much more comfortable with German pronunciation in general. When students take on English as a foreign language they are met with an endless list of words that are spelt one way but pronounced completely differently. When you do finally figure out how anathema is supposed to be said, though, it's actually kind of a pretty word. "all hands on deck"). Words that are difficult for a native French speaker to pronounce may look vastly different from words that a native Mandarin speaker might struggle with. Use lots of vowels and letter combinations the British can't decode. Camille is more than right in saying that we have another voice when speaking a foreign language, I notice it every time I utter English sentences! Jul 21, 2017 Getty Images. 3. The hardest word in the English language for foreigners to the pronounce is 'Worcestershire', according to a recent poll. 4. So, to help with all those tongue twisters and confusing spellings, we've compiled a list of some of the most hard-to-pronounce words, including phonetic spellings. The 10 hardest words to pronounce in English. The most Difficult Italian words to Pronounce! Popular posts. It may make it a tiny bit simpler to sound out, however, the combination of the ㄴ and ㅠ doesn’t make it roll off the tongue, and it can take a few tries to perfect the pronunciation. You can stumble upon these words while learning, or even when translating. Still, there are English words that even natives struggle with. Well my friend, unfortunately I didn’t! Pronunciation of foreign with 2 audio pronunciations, 32 synonyms, 4 antonyms, 15 translations, 18 sentences and more for foreign. Beyond that, there are certain types of sounds that may be universally tricky for the human mouth to handle, regardless of how familiar you are with the words that contain them. But it's not "post-hu-mus," as it appears; it's pronounced "pas-chu-mus. How to pronounce the hardest French words. Reddit weighs in on the hardest words in the English language to pronounce. 120 Hard Indonesian Words to Pronounce - Easy Practice learn how to pronoun some hard words in Indonesian language in correct and easy ways here. Research conducted by cruise agent Bolsover Cruise Club found that the Slovenian city Ptuj is the world’s hardest city to pronounce, with 92% failing to know the correct pronunciation. But how do you pronounce this oddly spelled word? This hard word to say is not one that people use in conversation too often, but it means "the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)," according to Merriam-Webster. © 2020 Galvanized Media. Even individual words can feel like a straight up tongue twister! What makes a word hard to pronounce? Specific 18. Tip: See my guide to the Most Common Pronunciation Errors in English. To help you understand what you're getting into, we've compiled this list of the hardest languages to learn. Scissors 8. You may have had this common ailment before. Unless you work on a ship, it's unlikely that you use the word boatswain in everyday conversation, so it's understandably a tricky one. Everyone incorrectly pronounces it as something like, “The Ruhhhrrr Jurrr.”. But don’t worry! The Most Difficult Words To Say in Polish 1. Phenomenon 16. That words are often not phonetically reliable is a big pain point for language learners, and it’s one of the things non-native speakers often complain about most when studying English. November 4, 2016 marketing. But the result is that when we see draught spelled properly, we're even less likely to know how to say it! You actually pronounce it as, “Roor-uhl.”. Anemone 9. Among these are rolled “r”s, “ths” (as in “baths”) and the Czech ř. ", Do not embarrass yourself by ordering "ki-no-a" as the base of your grain bowl. And where does the "r" sound come from? Steph is a writer, lindy hopper, and astrologer. What's that first "l" doing in there? You might be thinking: “David, you forgot to add the vowels”.