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How to pronounce the trickiest English words

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Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#61

Post by InCityDreams »

bestouff wrote: post #52
tivert wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 would hazard to say it's a pretty common feeling to think every language is dumb except your own. You're so used to the weirdness of your own language you don't even notice it, but weirdness in other language is always grat…

I dunno. I'm French and perfectly aware that my language is difficult to master. I wouldn't say it's dumb but it's just because I'm stupidly proud of my country.

As a very strict anti-nationalist - what is it about your country you are proud of? Nb I travel a lot and ask the question a lot (when appropriate). When i think of 'my country', i see nothing to be proud of. I didn't do it. I believe George Carlin summmed it up best: be proud of things you did, not countries, and stuff (sorry, can'tfind link)?

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#62

Post by Paul-Craft »

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…

Oh, really?

Let me introduce you to the "order of adjectives" rule: https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/grammar-bizarre-weird-rule-...

Talk about bizarre! Every native speaker has this internalized, but they never teach it in school.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#63

Post by iainmerrick »

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…

English also seems very amenable to loanwords from other languages -- you can usually just drop foreign words directly into English without any special twists. It seems much more fiddly in French, German, etc. In Japanese you always have to modify the pronunciation of English words (though maybe that comes easily with practice); in English you just go ahead and say "karaoke", "tsunami", etc.

Am I right in thinking English is unusual in that respect? I'm not expert enough in any other languages to know for sure.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#64

Post by CoastalCoder »

btilly wrote: post #20
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 what you got when Anglo-Saxon peasants were forced to serve French speaking nobles. Which is why basic grammar and simple words are Germanic in origin, while words for food, laws, and various complex things have Romance origins. And then went on to become traders who borrow words from everywhere. Add to that constantly shifting pronunciation rules. To pick an example that is only mostly complete, "wear" an…

> Old English had 5 genders, ...

Would you mind elaborating on this?

I know almost nothing about the topic, but IIUC from Wikipedia, Olde English only had 3 genders: [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_grammar#Gender

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#65

Post by swatcoder »

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...)…

Dumb is too vague a word. On the whole, English trades elegance for adaptability. You can compose elegantly in it, but as you note, it has many irregularities. So elegant phrases take effort and practice, where some other languages carry that elegance naturally in everyday speech. (Admittedly: as a writer, poet, singer, or orator, the challenge of making English truly pretty provides job security)

But the widespread irregularities of English are part of what gives it a knack for incorporating foreign words, phrases, and idioms. All kinds of weird alien things can be made to fit. Bizarre neologisms and imports can be deciphered relatively easily. Secondary to the accidents of history, this adaptability seems to be a part of why its been "chosen" as one of the main global commerce languages. When Hindi, Arabic, etc need to pick up chonky Germanic words or convey the tonal detail of Mandarin, it disturbs their elegance. But when English has to do it, it just adds the hodgepodge stew that we're used to.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#66

Post by jihadjihad »

My biggest issue with English pronunciation is with foreign loanwords, and the modern equivalents of ancient words. I'm a native English speaker and it's hard to know how to handle the diphthongs sometimes.

Dionysus is pronounced nothing like the Greek Διόνυσος, particularly because of the English diphthongs. If one letter representing one vowel by itself simply made one sound, a whole host of pronunciation challenges in English would disappear altogether!

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#67

Post by silvestrov »

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...)…

My biggest problem with English is the lack of different "you"s. If I say "you can't do that", what does this mean?

1) "you" as a concept: nobody at all can do this.

2) "you" as a specific person: only one person can't do this. Other people can do it.

3) "you" as a group: Nobody in the group (or the group as a whole) can do this.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#68

Post by Scoundreller »

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...)…

> at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...) You can also never have a word pronounced differently in different tense (for example, Read.) Furthermore, there are no words to my knowledge which sound the same but have different written spelling! (Write, Right, Rite.)

Slavic languages are generally like this. Almost 100% phoenetic. If you can say the alphabet, you can read anything out aloud and everyone will understand what you’re saying.

Unsure if there’s even such a thing as a Russian or Serbian spelling bee.

Family that has moved from there to North America generally have atrocious spelling in English.

And when I read/speak (bad) French, people think I must be Russian because I default to over pronunciation of everything.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#69

Post by euroderf »

tivert wrote: post #51
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...)…

> 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 would hazard to say it's a pretty common feeling to think every language is dumb except your own. You're so used to the weirdness of your own language you don't even notice it, but weirdness in other language is always grat…

> > (Write, Right, Rite.) > There's a good reason for that: to help disambiguate homophones in writing.

Most spelling reform proposals for English ignore this. Many would-be reformers try to cut directly to some particular phonetic spelling scheme, which throws away a key benefit of having homophones.

Disclaimer: like many English speakers, I too have my own spelling reform scheme, with the key difference that mine is better than all the others.

Re: How to pronounce the trickiest English words

#70

Post by lotsofspots »

silvestrov wrote: post #67
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...)…

My biggest problem with English is the lack of different "you"s. If I say "you can't do that", what does this mean? 1) "you" as a concept: nobody at all can do this. 2) "you" as a specific person: only one person can't do this. Other people can do it. 3) "you" as a group: Nobody in the group (or the group as a whole) can do this.

I like how the phrase "I didn't say she stole my wallet." changes meaning completely depending on which word(s) you emphasise.
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