Please say your native language, former language, and the word that sounds more than funny when you say it!
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Worcestershire sauce
I'm Finnish speaker and I do have several of these, but here are a couple:
1. The English word Apocalypse. I'm firs struggling with aco - no apopa no apoca and no matter what I do, the end sounds like lips.
2. every teen number in the Czech language. they all end with náct, which means I should somehow manage to say something like nátst. the tst is not happening and I'm mad at my tongue.
I learned the Bambara language in Peace Corps and the word 'ba' can mean river, goat, or mother, depending on how you pronounce it. I never did get it right and often asked people where their goat was instead of where their mother was...
Mine is actually from my Spanish teacher. He is from Panama and natively speaks Spanish. When he moved to America he tried to describe his experience at the beach to his coworkers, but in English it sounds like b*tch.
A defibrillator. I can't say it in English, nor in Finnish. what is defibrillaattori. My tongue just won't cooperate with my brain.
Kokeile sanoo defibbi tai rytmi jysäytin tai emmä tiiä. en oo kyllä kuullu kenenkään sanovan ääneen tota koko sanahirviöö
I speak Tamil, which is an Indian language. Obviously I have a very heavy accent and occasionally when I say the word “germs” it should like “gems”. It makes my friends laugh, but for a while I was ashamed of this. Now I don’t give a damn lol
Native language: Irish/ English
Every time I say 'Chipotle' when ordering something in a restaurant, I get asked to repeat it at least twice. No idea if I'm pronouncing it wrong, my accent trips up people occasionally (I've been told this by non native English speakers) or if there are just multiple ways people expect 'Chipotle' to be pronounced.
I know lots of Irish folks, and there are a million agents from Ireland, but, I've never had an issue understanding them. It's not like they're Scotts. Which i understand is correctly pronounced skhhhshktss. Please don't hate me Scottish people, i swear i love you most of all. I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm close enough.
Native English speaker here- can not pronounce vulnerable correctly but I can spell it correctly. Husband and his best friend laughed at me and told me to say “velociraptor” instead if ever I felt “vulnerable.” Kind of our running joke now.
Oh man.. so I got my start with Spanish and German in high school, 20 years ago and honestly I was much better at it back then! Spanish has come easier to me than German, but pronunciation wise it can be a nightmare with the N's and rolling/trilled R's (Spanish). I'm good at both, but my stupid mouth either wants to use them all the time or none of the time. To make sure I screw up less often, I speak really slowly. I think I'm getting better?
For German, I'm MUCH better at writing than speaking. My hangup for German are longer words. The longer the word, the more my tongue wants to have a stroke.
My hearing can also play a part. If I'm somewhere noisy or someone is speaking low/softly, or very fast, I'll c**k my head to them a little and watch their mouth, and focus intensely on what I'm seeing and hearing. This creeps people out, and trying to explain is always painful for me.
