Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

youglish.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 251 posts

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#51

Post by hathawsh »

overthemoon wrote: post #39

This is very cool. I looked up words that have always tripped me up, including banal, brood, indefatigable, preternatural, conch, niche. Indefatigable, banal, and conch had some conflicting ones but the "correct" one occurred enough times that I got the idea. ("Brood" probably isn't commonly mispronounced, I just got it mixed up early in life and never quite got it sorted it out. :) The results for "niche" are consis…

GIF is another curiously undecided word. I'm also reminded of "gigawatt", which was widely mispronounced following "Back to the Future" in 1985, but is now generally pronounced correctly. I attribute the change to the introduction of gigabyte hard drives.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#52

Post by josteink »

overthemoon wrote: post #39

This is very cool. I looked up words that have always tripped me up, including banal, brood, indefatigable, preternatural, conch, niche. Indefatigable, banal, and conch had some conflicting ones but the "correct" one occurred enough times that I got the idea. ("Brood" probably isn't commonly mispronounced, I just got it mixed up early in life and never quite got it sorted it out. :) The results for "niche" are consis…

> Neesh or nitch

I’ve literally only ever heard one person saying nitch. And he was ridiculed for it.

So yeah, for me that pronouncitation seems fairly niche.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#53

Post by jjeaff »

mc32 wrote: post #49
overthemoon wrote: post #39

This is very cool. I looked up words that have always tripped me up, including banal, brood, indefatigable, preternatural, conch, niche. Indefatigable, banal, and conch had some conflicting ones but the "correct" one occurred enough times that I got the idea. ("Brood" probably isn't commonly mispronounced, I just got it mixed up early in life and never quite got it sorted it out. :) The results for "niche" are consis…

Words which are derived or introduced from foreign languages (common in English) can have varying pronunciations. Some people tend to pronounce it close to how it sounds in the original language, others pronounce it with a more native English (be it American, Australian, British, etc.) accent. 'Croissant' 'Chic' 'Bouquet' 'Renaissance' etc. Then other words which are more native English words (even if they have Latin…

I find it interesting that British English speakers are much more likely to pronounce the english sounding version rather than close to how it sounds in the original language.

For example, pretty much across the board I hear "filet" pronounced with the 't' in British English. But Americans almost always a silent 't' like the French.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#55

Post by lottin »

RugnirViking wrote: post #41
overthemoon wrote: post #39

This is very cool. I looked up words that have always tripped me up, including banal, brood, indefatigable, preternatural, conch, niche. Indefatigable, banal, and conch had some conflicting ones but the "correct" one occurred enough times that I got the idea. ("Brood" probably isn't commonly mispronounced, I just got it mixed up early in life and never quite got it sorted it out. :) The results for "niche" are consis…

When english results are split in engish it is usually american english vs british english (which is often also spoken in australia and india) I can't say if that is the case here, but that is what I would suspect. As a british person I have usually heard it and used it as 'neesh'

According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary it is:

niche niːʃ nɪtʃ ǁ nɪtʃ — Preference poll, British English: niːʃ 95%, nɪtʃ 5%. In American English only nɪtʃ.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#56

Post by georgeam »

mjlee wrote: post #15

How do you leave feedback for what is just a bad pronunciation? The options I can see are: This is not english! Wrong caption? Wrong accent? Poor sound quality. Poor video quality. Crude/shocking content. I don't think any of those fit what I'm hearing for https://youglish.com/getcid/3905773/coxswain

I would also like to see a feedback option for wrong word (same spelling). For example I searched for "melee" meaning (close to) "chaotic fight", and one of the entries referred to a person called "MeLee". It should be possible to flag this and either automatically or manually review the entry.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#57

Post by jjeaff »

josteink wrote: post #52
overthemoon wrote: post #39

This is very cool. I looked up words that have always tripped me up, including banal, brood, indefatigable, preternatural, conch, niche. Indefatigable, banal, and conch had some conflicting ones but the "correct" one occurred enough times that I got the idea. ("Brood" probably isn't commonly mispronounced, I just got it mixed up early in life and never quite got it sorted it out. :) The results for "niche" are consis…

> Neesh or nitch I’ve literally only ever heard one person saying nitch. And he was ridiculed for it. So yeah, for me that pronouncitation seems fairly niche.

Where are you from? I have noticed that U.S. west coast seems to usually say "neesh" but I almost always hear "nitch" in the mid-west and south. Not sure about east coast.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#58

Post by jonfriese33 »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #47
RugnirViking wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When english results are split in engish it is usually american english vs british english (which is often also spoken in australia and india) I can't say if that is the case here, but that is what I would suspect. As a british person I have usually heard it and used it as 'neesh'

It only seems to be some Americans pronounce it nitch, so maybe regional there, though I couldn't guess where or which is most common. Here in the UK essentially always neesh. It is from French after all. Edit: American audiobooks on the other hand seem to go 100% with nitch for some unexplainable reason.

> It is from French after all.

This is funny to me because I often see people on the internet mentioning how strange it is that Americans leave off the 'h' when pronouncing 'herb'.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#59

Post by iiv »

Interesting. I found one problem, though. (Or is it a feature?)

All examples I listened to of "coup de grâce" pronounced it /ku də ɡrɑː/, while the "correct" way (if there is such a thing)is /ku də ɡrɑs/.

This kind of thing must come up in more examples. I'm not usually on the prescriptive side of things, but I think it's important to know the "right" way to do things, at least when you're learning a language. On the other hand, hypercorrection will probably never disappear, so why not embrace it?

Post reply on HN