Words that you can't pronounce no matter how hard you try ?

There are words that we just can't pronounce.

I think we all have one or two.

Like, I have a friend who can't never pronounce sheet and beach correctly.

He turns them into foul words.

For me it will be the word Worcestershire !!

I have been trying for many many years.

After watching this several times, I still can't pronounce it.

WUST-ur-shur

If you are from Massachusetts it’s “Woostah”.

Some southern US dialects pronounce "pen" as "pin". Trying to write with a pin is difficult. Putting your dog in one is darned near impossible.

And in many parts of the South the word “cement” is not pronounced as ceh-ment but cee-mint.

Anything in german, i can mind guess pronunciation for polish and russian words really well, indian too, but in spite of our fellow german simmers...german is not a language, its just noises you make when you a drunk......there i said it.

I have a good friend of 30 years from Boston.

Believe me when I say after all these years, when he speaks, I still don't understand him half of the time.

I'm amazed at how many people that can't say "button" these days. Like not even close.
It's a very pronounced "Buh-in"
I don't remember ever noticing that until a few years ago, so I assume there's a reason for it. It doesn't seem to be a regional thing either.
Lord knows we pronounce things in all manner of crazy ways in MS.
My wife can't say "jeweler".

Kvass and Vodka, two very key words if you hang around a lot of Slavpeoplekind.

It's that damned 'V', which is pronounced halfway between a V and a W, I cannot do.

What is a Kvass?

Fermented beverage made from bread, tastes like a cross between a really light beer and a soft drink.

Long chemical names and such aside, as well as foreign words, I can't ever recall having trouble pronouncing one.

But the tongue twister "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" has tripped me up before!

Thank you.



Try saying this one 10 times real fast:

"Pad kid poured curd pulled cod"

According to MIT researchers, it's the toughest tongue twister in the world.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2013/12/11/mit-tongue-twister/3985789/

I didn't find that challenging at all. But I should "confess" that I have the biggest loudest mouth you've ever heard. Not MY opinion, that is the opinion of everyone who's ever encountered me in my 49 years. I am ALWAYS being told I should have been a singer, a radio announcer, a sports commentator, a TV/Movie voice actor, a voice talent for commercials, etc...

Maybe if I liked talking to people that could have been something...

"Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"
Learned it as a kid. Hasn't even crossed my mind in years until just now. Can say it (teeth in or out ) without a slip.

Are you sure that's not a German word?

BAH..."colonials"

I can't even read that properly :/

I don’t find it difficult, either, and I’m one of those whose tang gets all tongueled up saying almost anything fast.

In Polish they have a tongue twister that translates into "The legs of the chair are broken." I have made it my goal, as a non-native Polish speaker, to wow the Poles with my being able to pronounce that tongue twister.

I also found recently when talking to my son that I have a hard time pronouncing "shape sorter" lately.

v6,
boNes

So what exactly is a "shape sorter" used for? It seems like a rather vague term!

Třistatřiatřicet stříbrných křepelek přeletělo přes třistatřiatřicet stříbrných střech.
(Three hundred and thirty three silver quails flew over three hundred and thirty three silver roofs.)

Czech tongue-twister. the ř is the fiddly part.

Data: Some people , I know say ( date da ) others say ( dat ah ) which one is correct ?

As a Brit I would say date-ah.

I know Americans say dat-ah, but the character Data in Star Trek was always called date-ah for some reason (Maybe Picard named him...)

That's interesting DM because I pronounce it as "date-ah" and I'm a Yank!



However, I don't quite understand why it's "aluminium" in the UK but "aluminum" in the US. That difference seems rather arbitrary to me.

Actually, dat-ah is singular and date-ah is plural.

v6,
boNes

It's that classic toy that is either a cube or a sphereoid with shapes cut into the surface where you insert blocks of the same shape into.

I should start saying "shape shifter" instead to introduce him to the weird world of scifi/fantasy!

v6,
boNes

Ah yes, I immediately visualized the toy as soon as you described it. I just had no idea it was called a shape sorter!

Um, no. Datum is the singular and data is the plural. As for pronunciation of the plural, data, I believe dictionaries say that either is/both are acceptable. Rather like toe-MAY-toe / toe-MAH-toe.

Here a tongue twister my friend who can't pronounce sheet correctly will have trouble with:

How many sheets could a sheet slitter slit if a sheet slitter could slit sheets?

Or this one word from the classic Mary Poppins film.

Google says:



According to WIKI, it was a word first recorded in Oxford dictionary in 1931:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

In Latin, yes, but in engineering in terms of information, dat-ah is singular and date-ah is plural.

Kind of like how really it should be viri when we talk about more than one virus, which is correct in Latin, but in English we still say viruses.

v6,
boNes

That's atrocious, NoFlyBoy. Quite atrocious.

As a programmer in Texas, I am always interested in "Day-Duh"

I like this one better (you have to unmute it):

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3t2aqk

v6,
boNes

Apparently kids in those days use to say that word a lot when they get excited about something.

Nowadays, they just curse with emojis.

Leicester is a local community that gets some folks riled up, as to how it should be pronounced. Is it Lee-cester or Lester? The founder of the settlement named it in honor of an Englishman, the Earl of Leicester and pronounced it Lester, but many locals insist it is Lee-cester because they live there and will call it what they please.

Or this place in Wales:

Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll

Who the heck name this place?

Was he drunk at the time?

Listen to the correct Welsh pronunciation

For some reason I have a hard time with that word when asked what medication I take, Irbesartan
Being french probably doesn't help

Marc

The place name was lengthened in Victorian times to attract tourism: "contrived in 1869 as an early publicity stunt to give the station the longest name of any railway station in Britain".

As a resident of Worcestershire, I can confirm that it is mostly pronounced as 'Woostershere'. Rural vernacular would be 'Wussershyre' though authentic local accents are being diluted now due to population movement. Nearby market town Evesham, pronounced by older indigenous as 'Aysum'.
I live in a village called Naunton Beauchamp pronounced 'Beecham'.

Watching this makes me realize most of the English that I have been speaking all my life is mostly wrong.

Blame it on the schools and teachers that taught it to me and my Mum and Dad!

Don't you live in the UK NoFlyBoy? So why would you say that most of the English you have been speaking is wrong?

In US. UK speaks more correct English than we do.

I find it odd then that you say "mum" instead of "mom". I'm 47 and I have never met an American in my entire life who says "mum" instead of "mom".

That's cos we Americans don't speak correct English. Mummy instead of Mommy.

To be fair, the accents & dialects within the UK are at the same time more extreme than in the US, so for most of the UK, pronunciation is "wrong"

"Correct" pronunciation is probably something like (what we would call) "BBC English"

Sorry but a "mummy" is what you find wrapped in bandages stored inside some dark tomb in Egypt.

When I first started babbling I said Mummy instead of Mommy and then it became Mum.

I'll leave this link here:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2voh0q

HaHa!

This isn't really a problem with pronunciation exactly but what's the deal with so many people now writing " could of", "would of", "should of" instead of "could HAVE", "would HAVE" and "should HAVE"? My guess it's because many people pronounce "have" as "of" since they leave out the "ha" part?

Ich.

Pretty much, PM. They hear "could've" without knowing it's a contraction for "could have", and repeat it as "could of" even though that makes no sense whatsoever.

French tongue twister
try to say that ***** fast

Papier (pah pee yhey)
Panier (pah nee yhey)
Piano

(paper/basket/ everybody knows what a piano is....)

Friend of mine is European and he can pronounce the R sound. I can't do that.

Anyone who speaks Spanish can pronounce it very easily as well so basically 90% of Miami.

How do you do the R with your tongue?

I can't!