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English as a second language learners: what words were really hard for you to pronounce? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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If English wasn't your first language, maybe if you learned English later in life, were there any words that you had a really hard time learning how to pronounce? Do you think that had to do with the sounds made in your first language?

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[–] 18 points 10 months ago (6 children)

The delightful thing is that it works in reverse also: ask a native English speaker to pronounce "Eichhörnchen."

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (5 children)

    Eye-ch-urn-ken?

    Irish and we have that gutteral Ch sound in Irish so I feel like it's a cheat code for us.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    None of those ch's are guttural and you skipped an h;)

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

    So.... eye-ch-churn-chen?

    First bit like Ike (edit: or Reich)

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    The ch digraph in both instances of Eichhörnchen is pronounced closer to the way you pronounce the first consonant in the word "hue". It's closer to the front of the mouth than the one you're thinking of in Irish. It's ç in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It's a different sound than the other way that ch is pronounced in German and has to do with what sounds/letters appear around it. The other pronunciation of ch in German is normally pronounced as x (this sound is the one you're thinking of that's in Irish) or χ.

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