How to pronounce the trickiest English words • Hacker News Board

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#21

Post by mkingston » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #9

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

>cache, knowledge, repertoire Tbf English is quite consistent on 'kn' having a silent k. The other 2 are french imports.

You and I know that, but it's not important or useful to a non-French speaker learning English. To those people, those are merely English words. And indeed, they are English, even if they're French imports. I think even a lot of English speakers don't realise the depth of this: "cul de sac" is a fun example that a lot of people I ask don't realise comes from French (or another language, for that matter).

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#22

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

As far as I'm aware, every language out there is dumb, and English isn't especially dumb. Yes, its particular wart is pronunciation, and then also phrasal verbs especially [1].

But what are the dumb things English doesn't have? Noun genders (why?). A hundred different suffixes for regular verb conjugations (ugh). Subjunctives all over the place (maddening). A character-based script that isn't phonetic at all (e.g. Chinese). Insanely complicated grammar. Word forms that change based on the social status of the speaker relative to the listener. And so forth.

Truth be told, English is actually one of the easier languages out there. And while learning pronunciation is annoying, it turns out it's actually not a big obstacle in practice at all. In terms of what students struggle with in ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms, it's basically bottom of the list. Students struggle way more with the present perfect, for example (when to use "I've eaten" instead of "I ate").

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phrasal_verbs#Distingu...

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#23

Post by wodenokoto » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

> Furthermore, there are no words to my knowledge which sound the same but have different written spelling! (Write, Right, Rite.)

That’s a feature though. Makes reading much easier.

A common argument against removing kanji from Japanese and just use kana is that it removes the written difference between homonyms.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#24

Post by hotnfresh » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

mkingston wrote: post #15

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

As someone who is currently learning French and (amateur) teaching English I agree in general with your take on English. The frequency with which I say "yes, it doesn't really make sense to pronounce it that way" is high. English is full of crazy inconsistencies and I feel lucky to have learned it as a native speaker. Here's a nice illustration/example of what you've written: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti I rea…

One of my French professors said (and I think she was serious?) that the French have conjugation-bees, not spelling bees, because French spelling is too easy to be able to build a contest around it. If you can say it, you can almost certainly spell it. Too few exceptions to that to make spelling bees work.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#25

Post by btilly » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

gilleain wrote: post #17

btilly wrote: post #11

Try to read The Chaos aloud to demonstrate that you, too, do not know how to pronounce English: https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html Just as an example, did you know that the placement of a comma can change the pronunciation of a word? It can, and that poem has an example where it does!

Which is where, exactly. It is not obvious :)

I'll give a hint that people can choose not to try to read if they want to find it for themselves.

¿qɹǝʌ ɐ ɹo lɐɯᴉuɐ uɐ ,,sǝop,, sI

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#26

Post by beeforpork » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

> English is a pretty dumb language

Don't mix up language and spelling. Spelling is man-made. Language is not dumb.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#27

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

didgeoridoo wrote: post #8

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

You’re right that English is a total mess. It’s partly the result of mashing up two totally separate language families (Romance and Germanic). But that also makes the language extremely flexible, forgiving, and adaptable. English contains a vast number of (mostly) mutually-intelligible dialects, each with its own rich history, beauty, and shibboleths. You’ve got to take the bad with the good, I guess.

[deleted]

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#28

Post by fakecrusade » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

Not sure about English but I did learn tons of French wine pronunciation thanks to him, notably pouilly-fuisse and gevrey-chambertin which I was struggling

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#29

Post by gilleain » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #25

gilleain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is where, exactly. It is not obvious :)

I'll give a hint that people can choose not to try to read if they want to find it for themselves. ¿qɹǝʌ ɐ ɹo lɐɯᴉuɐ uɐ ,,sǝop,, sI

I see, thanks.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#30

Post by Aloha » Fri, Nov 03, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #22

Bhilai wrote: post #3

Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I am happy to learn from you all and change my current opinion on English. I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...)…

As far as I'm aware, every language out there is dumb, and English isn't especially dumb. Yes, its particular wart is pronunciation, and then also phrasal verbs especially [1]. But what are the dumb things English doesn't have? Noun genders (why?). A hundred different suffixes for regular verb conjugations (ugh). Subjunctives all over the place (maddening). A character-based script that isn't phonetic at all (e.g. Ch…

The hardest part about english as far as I know is vocabulary - which is vast - something like 1/3rd larger than other languages because of the dual parentage of English and French - and thats before you get into words that have three or four definitions.

The one nice thing about English is you can totally munge it, wrong tenses, slightly wrong words, wrong word order, and its still intelligible.

Like, you can transliterate spanish or french (or any number of languages) into english, and it will be perfectly understandable in most cases to a native speaker.