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| Thread: Hard to pronounce |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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LordZXZX
Famous Hero
Overfished
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posted February 20, 2004 12:51 PM |
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Hard to pronounce
English is such a hard language to master. Who came up with the spellings? Who came up with the pronunciations?
Why pronunciation? Why not pronounciation?
It can bring up misunderstanding and chaos.
Example: A woman in Britain wanted to go to Torquay. So, the new cabbie took her to the airport, thinking it was Turkey.
Anyway, this is inspired by a poem I read recently:
The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenite
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse.
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you busy, Suzy
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! O hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard.
Dies and diet; lord and word.
Sword and sward; retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak.
Cloven, oven; how and tow;
Script, receipt, show, poem and toe
Billet does not rhyme with ballet.
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and could.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And when your pronunciation's OK,
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;
Friend and fiend; alive and live.
Ivy, privy; famous, clamour.
And enamour rhymes with hammer.
River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;
Doll and roll; some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul but foul; haunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, wand, grand and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal; mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge.
Marriage, foliage, mirage and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, both.
Job, nob; bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences may seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, so does zephyr and heifer.
Mint, pint; senate, sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific
That's just part of it. I can't finish it because some SOAB tore the page which is was reading from.
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 20, 2004 12:55 PM |
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Quote:
Why pronunciation? Why not pronounciation?
Actually, the second form is correct, not the first one 
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Yolk and God bless.
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My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted February 20, 2004 12:59 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Why pronunciation? Why not pronounciation?
Actually, the second form is correct, not the first one
Sorry Lord_Woock, but you are wrong 
It´s pronounce
but pronunciation
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 20, 2004 01:06 PM |
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O_O
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Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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LordZXZX
Famous Hero
Overfished
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posted February 20, 2004 03:03 PM |
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My point has been proven. Who ommited the extra 'o'? English is truly a confusing language that is hard to master.
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Aquaman333
Famous Hero
of the seven seas
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posted February 20, 2004 08:56 PM |
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I had trouble learning when I first moveed to America, but I can express things I never could with my native language.
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"Brian, look! There's a message in my Alphabits! It says,
"OOOOOOO!"."
"Peter, those are Cheerios."-Family Guy
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Athimus_Phaeni
Famous Hero
Final Fantasy Fan
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posted February 20, 2004 11:21 PM |
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The problem of English(and some other languanges) is that they don't a relation between a letter and a phoneme. It makes hard to learn the correct pronunciation of some(actually, lots) of words.
On the other hand, in Portuguese(and other languages derived mainly from Latin) there is that relation, so it is easy to learn to pronounce the words correctly. But you will have problems with accentuation, gender, and other things.
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But I won't be
Burned by the reflection
Of the fire in your eyes
As you're starying at the sun
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 21, 2004 12:19 AM |
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Add Polish to that list, and a heck of a lot of the slavic languages methinks.
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Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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Athimus_Phaeni
Famous Hero
Final Fantasy Fan
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posted February 21, 2004 12:50 AM |
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Which list? English list or Portuguese list?
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But I won't be
Burned by the reflection
Of the fire in your eyes
As you're starying at the sun
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redhawk
Known Hero
Gaurdian Supreme
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posted February 21, 2004 02:03 AM |
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You are right about the english language being hard to master, I've traveled extensively and picked up words and key phrases from all over the world. But none was as hard as when I went to Mardi gras in New orleans, Louisiana. USA. The deep southern Cajun dilect through me for a loop. I was talking to A girl about getting in her pants, next thing I knew I was on A canoe in the swamps heading for A barbecue with her brothers, scared the hell out of me, thought I was fish food. Turned out to be really fun even though I still didn't understand most of what people were saying. I think they were probably talking about the scared look on the face of the city guy ( me ) Because they looked at me alot and laughed. Never did work out between the girl and I. To bad, she was really beautiful. Anyhow, My point is that growing up in America and speaking English, It is still difficult for me to communicate with others, so I don't envy anyone who is trying to learn English that is from another country.
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It's better to burn out, Than fade away !!!!!!!!
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Wolfman
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
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posted February 21, 2004 02:08 AM |
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There are so many distinctly different dialects in the US, that it is hard to understand some people. The South and Northeast have very strong accents, in my opinion.
The majority of telemarketing companies are based out of the Midwest, in my city no less, because the accent is so soft. Most if not all Americans can understand people from the Midwest.
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Wiseman
Known Hero
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posted February 21, 2004 08:00 PM |
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English is in my opinion easiest indo-europena language to master.Yes it has the spelling problem, yes it has a nightmare tense system (which is far worse than the former),
but what it doesn`t have is.... hm is there a word in it in english?I`m reffering to what is known in latin as casi
if I`m not mistaken (nominativus,genitivus,dativus etc.)
Although in slavic languages, and some others, it`s easy
to read and write because already mentioned relation between a letter and a phoneme, it`s VERY hard to speak fluidly and correctly.You can`t just put the noun and
adjective together you have to change both of them accordingly and keep in mind the exceptions(number of which
varies from language to language, but in some is pretty high).And in some languages you have up to eight casi
(if that`s the right word
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privatehudson
Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
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posted February 21, 2004 08:43 PM |
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Well we invented the langauge to confuse you all don't you know?
And if anyone thinks America has a lot of dialects that are hard to work out, they should try coming to the UK. A country smaller than many of your states and dialects and langauges that half the time are just plain weird.
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We're on an express elevator to Hell, goin' down!
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 21, 2004 09:27 PM |
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Well, woopee! Sometimes when speaking English I make up random accents just for fun
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Yolk and God bless.
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My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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privatehudson
Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
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posted February 21, 2004 09:29 PM |
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You have too much time on your hands
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We're on an express elevator to Hell, goin' down!
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted February 21, 2004 09:30 PM |
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Ja, naturlich!
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Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
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Athimus_Phaeni
Famous Hero
Final Fantasy Fan
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posted February 22, 2004 01:31 AM |
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Quote:
And if anyone thinks America has a lot of dialects that are hard to work out, they should try coming to the UK. A country smaller than many of your states and dialects and langauges that half the time are just plain weird.
You are invited to come to Brazil, and travel around the country. You will be surprised by the difference between some regions. Some words change the meaning, others are unknown in certain places, accent, conjulgation of verbs, slangs...
Well, lots of things that sometimes make a dialog impossible to be understandable.
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But I won't be
Burned by the reflection
Of the fire in your eyes
As you're starying at the sun
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privatehudson
Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
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posted February 22, 2004 02:02 AM |
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And just how many times is Brazil bigger than the UK? I rest my case
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We're on an express elevator to Hell, goin' down!
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Wiseman
Known Hero
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posted February 22, 2004 10:36 AM |
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It`s not really about size of the country it`s about variability of geography i.e number of different regions..
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted February 23, 2004 02:30 AM |
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Lordzxzx, you talking about english is difficult. Lol !!
You know Chinese! What can be more difficult than that?
I read somewhere that many Chinese speaking people can’t write correctly.
Anyway, I agree with whoever said there that other languages are easier to read, but have much more difficult grammar than English.
My native Macedonian is, I think, the only language in the Slavic group, alongside Bulgarian which doesn’t have cases. But don’t even think for a moment that it’s easy to learn. There are a large number of tenses and verb forms. Verbs, adjectives nouns all have different suffixes and prefixes depending on the tense, gender and person.
Don’t whine about it, English’s a piece of cake compared to the others.
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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