English as a second language learners: what words were really hard for you to pronounce? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 month ago by RockySalad@discuss.tchncs.de to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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If English wasn't your first language, maybe if you learned English later in life, were there any words that you had a really hard time learning how to pronounce? Do you think that had to do with the sounds made in your first language?

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[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Facade as Fack-aid, is one.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

*façade

[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

In France certainly.

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

I've never heard anyone of any native language pronounce it fack-aid? The English speakers I hear always say fuh-saad. Or are you saying that fack-aid is how you pronounce it and you struggle with fuh-saad?

[-] Cricket@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

Same here.

[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Most loan-words are hard for ESL learners, they retain the original language pronunciation and break many phonetic rules of English pronunciation.

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Oh so you're saying the latter.

Fuh-saad is pretty in line with English pronunciation "rules" (though English doesn't really have pronunciation rules the same way other languages do—see though, through, cough, bough, etc). Maybe a more "English" way of saying it would be fuh-sayd, but I think the c would be interpreted as a soft c even if it weren't a loanword. Again, hard to say with English which is notoriously inconsistent though.

[-] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago

Some English speakers pronounce that the french way

Niche is another weird one bc in some contexts it is pronouched the french way in others, "nitch".

The squirrel's ecological "nitch".

Finding your niche in the job market....

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025

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