• TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Haha. It is clear you’re not British or at least familiar with British pronunciations of some words and place names. Mispronounce “Leicester” or “Portsmouth” and you will bring down the entire wrath of England. These pronunciations are relic of Old English and pre-Modern Era English, or bastardised when the Norman-French came.

    And who are we to complain when everyday English words are already bizarre? “Salmon” is meant to be pronounced “sa’muhn”. It’s a relic of Norman-French. “gh” in some words are silent like “bought” and “nought”. And sometimes “ou” is pronounced as “aú” like in “bough”. Why are these letters there when they are silent?! The latter words are descendant of Old English.

    These huge variations in pronounciations is what makes many non-native English speakers confused and struggling.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Mispronounce “Leicester” or “Portsmouth” and you will bring down the entire wrath of England

      Joke’s on them, I have no tea, spices, land, archaeological relics or cheap labor to be plundered!

      These huge variations in pronounciations is what makes many non-native English speakers confused and struggling.

      The way the words are written and their actual phonetic sound being absurdly different (plus vowels completely changing their sound “at random”) doesn’t help either. Same applies to french and their dumb mute final letters and accents in the wrong places. “Tróis” = “trrru aaaahhh”

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        French is what happens when a drunk Galician and a Roman-Italian try to teach a Viking how to speak Latin.

          • Gabu@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Nah, Romanian is what happens when two Romans and a few Rus get together for a wild party that lasts a week. By the end, nobody remembers how to speak their native language anymore, so they decide to make do with whatever mess is left. Also, for some reason, a Hungarian guy keeps speaking Hungarian.

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        I’m learning French but I feel that French pronunciations are more intuitive and straightforward.

        Now that you mentioned accent, I think that is why French pronunciations for me is intuitive because there are accents in place guiding speakers on how to pronounce the letter and syllables. English writing, for some reason, do not use accents at all.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      8 months ago

      Isnt it weird how we pronounce ‘salmon’ as ‘salmon’ but we pronounce ‘salmonella’ as ‘salmonella’?