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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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[–] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I've never heard anyone of any native language pronounce it fack-aid? The English speakers I hear always say fuh-saad. Or are you saying that fack-aid is how you pronounce it and you struggle with fuh-saad?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Most loan-words are hard for ESL learners, they retain the original language pronunciation and break many phonetic rules of English pronunciation.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Oh so you're saying the latter.

    Fuh-saad is pretty in line with English pronunciation "rules" (though English doesn't really have pronunciation rules the same way other languages do—see though, through, cough, bough, etc). Maybe a more "English" way of saying it would be fuh-sayd, but I think the c would be interpreted as a soft c even if it weren't a loanword. Again, hard to say with English which is notoriously inconsistent though.

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