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Youssefdir Posted 12 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

difficult to pronounce?

Good day,
what's the most difficult word to pronounce for a native English?
  

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We have no trouble with any of them.

  • We have no trouble with any of them.
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14 Answers
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We have no trouble with any of them.
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youssefdir Good day,what's the most difficult word to pronounce for a native English?
That varies from person to person.

I'm not fond of 'rural' or 'statistics'.
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I asked the question because I noticed that there is a rhyme for English words, so I wonder if there are some words that break the usual rhyme.
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youssefdirthere is a rhyme for English words,
Could you please explain this more, youssefdir? I'm not sure what you mean.
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I mean, in pronunciation of a word like "oesophagus", what could make a native pronounce it as /i?'s?f?g?s/ instead of /i?'s?fag?s/? I think it is because "oe" has to be /i:/ and "gus" has to be /g?s/ so the most suitable pronunciation of "pha" has to be /f?/.
So I was wondering if there is a word that makes an exception, i.e. its pronunciation seems odd, even for a native.
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youssefdirSo I was wondering if there is a word that makes an exception, i.e. its pronunciation seems odd, even for a native.
There are lots of them—we learn them by experience.

design vs designate
tough vs cough vs bough vs dough vs through
meat vs great vs threat

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youssefdirI noticed that there is a rhyme for English words
I think you might mean 'rhythm' instead of 'rhyme' because you seem to be focusing on stress placement.
youssefdirsome words that break the usual rhyme.
It's hard to say which words break the usual rules for stress placement without knowing what the usual rules are.
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yes, the rhythm is what I meant, and regardless of where the stress in a word is, I wondered if there are words that seem unusual for a native, stress-wise or otherwise. I wanted to get into the mind, feeling, or imagination of a native, and know the fact of the English language.
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youssefdirI wondered if there are words that seem unusual for a native, stress-wise or otherwise.
I think there are two categories of words that most natives find unusual: new words and old words.

When we encounter a word that we have never seen or heard before, it seems unusual to us. But after learning to use it, it no longer seems unusual. This
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Strange as it may seem, I have trouble with particularly. I always stumble on the 'larly' at the end. I find that it is a lot easier to pronounce with a British accent.
Conscentious is another hard one for me. I always end up saying "conCHentious" or "conSentious".

H.
[Not a native speaker]

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