I used to think the “th” sound is hard because it is uncommon in my language, we do not use our tongues to hit the top teeth like that. But then, it became 2nd nature after living abroad for almost 20 years.
Recently i happen to work with a lot of architects and designers and 1 word comes up which I think is the most difficult to pronouncr: AESTHETIC.
It sounds very simple but if you break down the syllables, your tongue needs to do a bit of work.
For the British English version, the “t” in tic is pronounced quite strong, as in “tick”. Mostly, your tongue only needs to worry about the “THE” sound, i.e. ES-THE-TIC.
In US English, the “t” is most often pronounced as a soft “d”. This means “TIC” will sound like “DIC”. So your tongue needs to flick up for the “THE” sound and then immediately flick down for the “DIC”.
This gets even harder if you consider the adverb: AESTHETICALLY. A lot of tongue gymnasium involve…
Any other words or phrase that you think is dificult?
Paw and Poor sounds like the same word in my dialect, so I have to put in effort to switch to Received Pronunciation when I need to differentiate
+1 for “th”. I’m from germany and it’s like impossible to pronounce for me.
Grew up in the US (the Deep South)… moved to England, have been here for like a bajillion years and unfortunately still sound American 😕
But for me it is crisps. Why do we have to say this word when it is so awkward?!?
You are not alone on this one.English is not my first language so I have to make a conscious effort with words that have STS sounds like: Ghosts, forests, dentists and crisps. Lol.
Glad to know I’m not alone, I don’t really understand why humanity has made things so hard for humanity at times… surely this can’t also be linked to greed like so many other issues?!? 😅😅
I have pretty much no split between four and thaw. Can’t even hear the difference when someone else does it.
“Phthalates”
That’s not an English word, that’s a space catholic word.
I have a disdain for technical latin, Stop telling me I have hypernatremia; high blood salt is exactly as detailed and like 54 syllables shorter.
Australian here and with my bigan arse accent I struggle to pronounce the word “regularly”
I break it up to much when I read it into reg-u-lar-ly
If i say it is just roll through the last have and get regurrrly
In my tarheel accent, a consonant Y often gets sanded to an uh sound. Especially when speaking quickly it’s not uncommon to hear a Carolinian say “REG-uh-lurr” rather than “REG-yew-lurr”.
Is your accent the one where “oh, no!” sounds like “ohr, nohr!”
Everything is difficult (I’m from Spain).
Czech has this special Ř sound, which is somewhere between a rolling R and the S in vision (/ˈvɪʒən/). I’m learning Czech as a fifth language, so while I can pronounce it standalone or at the start of a word it takes all my focus to manage mid-word.
February. I’m happy I don’t have to say it often.
Is there anywhere on earth that pronounces the R? FEB-you-air-EE.
In India, it’s usually feb-ru-(v)a-ree. Our languages write words as they are pronounced, and we’re too lazy to make an exception for English.
Yeah English phonics is a garbage fire. Just look at that last sentence.
UK native speaker. I tend to pronounce it “feb-ə-ree”
Non-native but spent a lot of my life living in English-speaking contexts. I know how to pronounce it, but my tongue seems to like tripping up over “hospital”.
I’m from the American Southeast. I speak with a tarheel drawl. To listen to me speak, you’d think the word “rural” has four Rs in it. Rrrrl.
To be fair, r is a secret vowel
We’ll eventually give up and thesaurus it.
Rrrrl. Rrrrl. RRRRL. Out inna woods.
English speaker - corollary.
I have trouble with “sixths”.
and “twelvths”
My children’s optometrist is a place called “Tropical Optical”. I can’t do it.
Unique New York
Ostentatious Austin, Texas
Stumbled on this tongue twister in the wild. It’s freaking impossible.
Soldier shoulder surgery.
