“What’s A Word That Someone Horribly Mispronounced That You Still Remember?” (30 Answers)

Mispronouncing words is a natural part of learning a new language. It's a common occurrence even for native speakers. This time we'll discuss the English language and its phonetic aspects in more depth. But keep in mind, we can apply similar logic to the other languages of the world.

Our expert on English phonetics is Luke Nicholson. He has been teaching English learners how to communicate more clearly for over 10 years. Nicholson teaches a summer course in English Phonetics at the University College London and is also the creator of Funetics, a website that focuses on languages other than English

In 2017, Luke became the UK Freelancer of the Year. He has also spoken for a variety of media, from BBC Radio London to the Rosetta Stone podcast. His goal is to provide high-quality teaching materials for British English pronunciation.

Nicholson says that people mispronounce words for different reasons. "If someone hasn't been exposed to a word in its spoken form, they may guess the pronunciation based on the spelling," he explains.

Sadly, spelling sometimes can be your worst enemy, especially in the English language. "Unfortunately for English learners, English spelling doesn't clearly reflect how we pronounce words today," the accent coach says. He gives one example: "We spell 'lamb' with a 'b' because we used to pronounce it, but we don't anymore."

People who are learning English are not the only ones struggling with having to pronounce words differently from how they're spelled. Native speakers can fall victim to this too. "Who could deduce that 'wind' (the movement of air) and 'wind' (as in winding up a clock) are pronounced differently?" Nicholson observes.

"Guessing pronunciation from the spelling is even challenging for those who speak English as their first language," the accent coach reiterates. "Place names are particularly troublesome." He gives one interesting example: did you know that "Cholmondeley" is actually pronounced "CHUM-lee"?

Are non-English speakers doomed then? "For those who don't speak English as their first language, there may be sounds they find tricky to pronounce," Nicholson explains. "For instance, the Spanish language doesn't have a distinction between a 's' and a 'sh' sound. This means English words like 'sash' may be mispronounced by Spanish speakers."

Those to whom English is a second language most often struggle with how to pronounce the 'th' sound. Surprisingly, we can find the sound in other languages spoken in Europe as well. "The 'th' sounds in English (like in 'this' and 'thing') are found in a few other languages," Nicholson says. Among them are Icelandic, Albanian, Welsh, and Greek.