English pronunciation test (long)

[Dorsetmike]

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

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, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh 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 low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first 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, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

Is there any other language that has such a diversity? Those of us who speak English as our mother tongue probably don't realise the problem others have.

[marval]

Hi Mike,

That is very good, the English language must be quite difficult for other people, especially as words do not sound as they are spelled.

Here is a list of the 100 most common mis-pronounced words and phrases.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html


Margaret

[greatcyber]

Oye Veh!

+ YouTube Video

[Dorsetmike]

Further to the idiosyncrasies of English pronunciation if taken to ridiculous extremes then "fish" could be spelt ghoti; gh as in cough, o as in women, and ti as in nation

Now try figure "ghoughpteighbteau" and explain how you did the "translation"


Clue a common vegetable.

[greatcyber]

Idiosyncrasies, indeed. It hurts my brain just to think about it! It's amazing any of us ever learned English. Now, French is starting to look easy to me. lol

[dll927]

The English phonetic system does not follow letters as the Spanish system does. In Spanish (leaving aside dialectical differences), only "C" and "G" change sounds, but that depends on the following letter, and it is consistent. Basically, there are many more sounds in English than in Spanish, and our so-called "short" vowels tend to cause a lot of problems for foreign speakers, which is why a Spanish-speaking person pronounces "hat" like "hot". Spanish has "ch", but not "sh", so "chair" and "share" , or "cheap" and "sheep" sound alike to that person.

Now explain these in English: 1) there, their, they're 2) fair, fare 3) rain, rein, reign -- and the list goes on.

They make a fuss about teaching phonics in English, and phonics is full of rules. For instance, a final "e" is silent and makes the preceding vowel "long". That's true, except WHEN IT ISN'T. How can "live" be pronounced two ways? Do "machine" or "have" follow that rule?

Then there's the one that says "a vowel is always short, except when it has to be long." Did you ever try telling that to a seven-year-old?

I majored in Spanish, then wound up at a Jr. high school in East Los Angeles, where I spent 32 years teaching Spanish to "regular" kids and English to Spanish-speaking ones. Under such circumstances, you quickly find out that what is difficult or problematical for one language is not the same as for the other. In Spanish, it's verb conjugations, which are almost non-existent in English, or the subjunctive mode (ditto). In English, it's pronunciation, pure and simple. As for verbs, it's not hard to learn "go, went, gone", but all the did/didn't/ do/don't, does/doesn't, plus all the other "modal auxiliaries" (can, could, may, might, must, should, will, would) cause problems for kids learning English.

And you thought politics was complicated!! Children have a strange habit of learning the language of wherever they are born and raised. But so far nobody has really figured out the ability of language acquisition. Along with thinking and reasoning, it's what distinguishes human beings from the other species.

In nomine patri, et filii, et spiriti sancti, Amen.

[rojo]

Further to the idiosyncrasies of English pronunciation if taken to ridiculous extremes then "fish" could be spelt ghoti; gh as in cough, o as in women, and ti as in nation

Now try figure "ghoughpteighbteau" and explain how you did the "translation"


Clue a common vegetable.

I'm going to go with 'potato.' But don't ask me why.

Btw, is 'spelt' really a word in common usage? I've heard it pronounced that way, but I think I've only ever seen 'spelled.' Not sure..

[marval]

Thanks for the video Stephen.

English is a stupid language. As for spelt, I have seen it used. But this is what spelt really is, just to confuse things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt


Margaret

[Dorsetmike]

I'm going to go with 'potato.' But don't ask me why.

Btw, is 'spelt' really a word in common usage? I've heard it pronounced that way, but I think I've only ever seen 'spelled.' Not sure..

You are right, Potato it is, see -

http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxwhat04.html

As for spelt, my "Oxford Complete Wordfinder" lists both spelt and spelled as correct and alternative spellings of the past tense and past participle of the verb spell.

As Margaret says spelt is also a species of wheat.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha GrandDame Margaret,

Now you have really piqued my curiosity dear lady. May I humbly ask what do you mean when you say that English is a stupid language? If English is a stupid language does that make the works of Shakespeare unintelligible and cast an unfavorable light on Shakespeare who used this *stupid language* to express both the tragedy and triumph of human experience?

Inquiring minds now plead with you to share your revelation...........

Respectfully yours,

CD

[Krummhorn]

. . .
Btw, is 'spelt' really a word in common usage? I've heard it pronounced that way, but I think I've only ever seen 'spelled.' Not sure..

Spelt is a common word in our English language. There are several uses as can be seen in this online dictionary.

I've used it frequently myself

. . . English is a stupid language . . .

Spot on, Margaret ... I agree with you. What's amazing about the language is that the foreigners speak it far better than those who were born here - we, in America, are a sloppy people when it comes to pronunciation of our own native tongue language.

It's a very confusing language ... (to, too, two) ... many words sound the same but yet have different meanings depending on how they are "spelt".

[marval]

Hi CD,

I am sorry if I offended you.
I did not mean to claim all of the English language is stupid. Shakespeare writes beautifully with the English language. As Krummhorn said, it is just that we have words that sound the same, but have totally different meanings and spellings. If someone from another country saw certain words written down, they would find them difficult to pronounce. (rough, cough, thought)

I hope that explains what I meant.

Here is a brief history of the English language.

http://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm


Margaret

[Corno Dolce]

Dear GrandDame Margaret,

I'm chuffed to bits. Please, you did not offend me at all. I too am a foreigner who has learnt the English Language the hard way. When thinking about it, and as GrandMaster Krummhorn mentioned, words sounding the same but with different spellings, thus forcing the need to listen for the context the word is being used in for to determine the correct spelling and, thereby, to properly write about what is/ has been spoken.

A professor with whom I studied Mandarin Chinese mentioned a truism to me: As difficult as it is for Americans and Britishers to learn Chinese, it is equally difficult for Chinese to learn English.

Come to think of it, somewhere around April of this year, there will be one million English words according to the linked article http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-c...ord-march.html

And classical Chinese has *only* 88,000 characters.............

Best regards,

CD

[Mat]

I too am a foreigner who has learnt the English Language the hard way.

And may I ask where are you from?

[rojo]

Hi Mike,

That is very good, the English language must be quite difficult for other people, especially as words do not sound as they are spelled.

Here is a list of the 100 most common mis-pronounced words and phrases.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html


Margaret

That's quite a list!

I find it sounds lethal when people say "I'll have to aks her..."

Oye Veh!

+ YouTube Video

Fred's great. Ever hear him play piano? He's really a fine pianist, besides being an amazing dancer. And as heard here, he can sing quite well too.

You are right, Potato it is

Woohoo!

As for spelt, my "Oxford Complete Wordfinder" lists both spelt and spelled as correct and alternative spellings of the past tense and past participle of the verb spell.

As Margaret says spelt is also a species of wheat.

Ah; thanks for clearing that up.

It's a very confusing language ... (to, too, two) ... many words sound the same but yet have different meanings depending on how they are "spelt".