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Sheet / Sheep / Shit / Ship
For turkish speakers generally, its every single multi-syllable word. In turkish, syllables arent stressed and most syllables are pronounced equally. And since in english stress is very important for pronunciation, my peers' (and teachers in schools) speech is unintelligable
My friend has a hard time pronouncing 'teeth'. Just comes out sounding like 'tits'
I'd suggest "choppers" but it would probably come out "knockers."
I have to perform a context switch between "v" and "w" sounds, so words and phrases that contain both (e.g: "very well") sometimes end up with only "w" sounds. (My native language does not have a regular "W" sound)
But even after 20 years speaking it, English pronunciation is complete nonsense. Most of the time, you just need to memorize the words. Because trying to figure out how to say something, you also need to know if the word is borrowed from any other languages that use Latin alphabet, and then pronouce it pretending to speak that language. Simplest example: Mocha (moh-ka) and matcha (maht-cha). But there are countless borrowed words that don't change spelling in English.
AGREED about English pronunciation, I don't think anybody truly understands
I once watched a German YouTuber talk about learning English and how quickly she improved when she started working in an English office because she _ had_ to. In the video she says one of the things she’s always had difficulty with but is now much better at and almost never slips up on now is vs and ws. Then, immediately afterwards in the next sentence she goes “now in this wideo…”
"sorry". I mainly use English in my daily life and at work for several years now, but cannot make it not sound like "sowy" or roll "r" too much.
texts, clothes. consonant clusters.
the things i remember struggling with were getting the stress right and hyperforeignisms (that is, concentrating so hard on getting the difficult "w" and "th" sounds that i would pronounce "v" as "w" and "s" as "th" by accident. i was once asked if my native language had a "v", because that was the one i seemed to be struggling with)
Entrepreneur
Don't feel bad, everyone. English pronunciation IS difficult, though through tough thorough thought, you can do it!
You must say this out loud as an affirmation.
Words starting with th- (th-fronting) and plurals ending in -ths, -sps, etc.
I always pronounced “only” as “on-lie”. I heard other people say “only” and couldn’t understand what they meant.
Rural and squirrel
Oh god yes
German?
I always thought it was amusing that both German and English have equally difficult words for those fuzzy little rodents. "Squirrel" and "eichhörnchen."
Skwrl - no vowels
Sk-wirrel is how it usually breaks down in my head
Colonel.
Less of how hard it is to actually pronounce, more like how hard it is to believe it's pronounced that way.
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English is my first language but saying "edited it" drives me crazy.
ME TOO omg
For most new native English speakers, it's Spaghetti (pisketty) and Elephant (efalent). For my son it was Caterpillar (calapitter). I struggled with pronouncing Uncomfortable. I wanted to say every syllable.
calapitter aww
You would be accurate if you pronounced every syllable of the word uncomfortable. Americans are just lazy, not pronouncing every syllable. Nobody would look at you strangely if you pronounced every syllable of that word. It would just seem like you're emphasizing HOW UNCOMFORTABLE you are if you pronounce every syllable of the word :-)
No, I mean that as a kid, I wanted to say every syllable, but I found it difficult. I could hear adults saying it the easy way, but I wanted to know the real word. I loved to read as a kid, and soaked up every word I could find.
As a math teacher, I hate "sixth" or "sixths."
so hard to say omg
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Worcestershire sauce
odd, I never had an issue with WarChester sauce.
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Ask a German to pronounce “squirrel.”
The delightful thing is that it works in reverse also: ask a native English speaker to pronounce "Eichhörnchen."
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The number of native English speakers who can't pronounce "specific" and instead say "pacific" is too damn high.
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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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