If you are a learner of
English, you may be encouraged to hear that you are not alone in your struggle
to master English pronunciation. There are many words that the British too have
a tendency to stumble over or mispronounce. I for one am forever correcting my
husband’s infuriating pronunciation of 'nuclear' ("nyoo-kyuh-ler") and 'secretary' (“sek-yuh-teh-ree”) and am
mocked in equal measure for my ingrained mispronunciation of 'phoenix' (“fee-uh-niks”) and 'weapon' (“weh-pin”). A poll of members of the British
Institute of Verbatim Reporters (BIVR), the UK's leading organisation for
professionals involved in taking down speech at court and tribunal hearings, revealed
10 words that Britons consistently mispronounce:
1. phenomenon [fi-nom-uh-nuhn]
2. remuneration [ri-myoo-nuh-rey-shuhn]
3. statistics [stuh-tis-tiks]
4. ethnicity [eth-nis-i-tee]
5. hereditary [huh-red-i-ter-ee, -tree]
6. particularly [per-tik-yuh-ler-lee, puh-tik-]
7. conjugal [kon-juh-guhl]
8. specific [spi-sif-ik]
9. processes [proh-ses-iz]
10. development [dih-vel-uhp-muhnt]
Leah Willersdorf, of the
BIVR, said: "We work with many different types of professionals and hear
all kinds of voices during our work. However, when it comes to the English
language it always seems to be the same few words that verbally trip people up,
with the speaker having to repeat the word in order to get it right, or just
abandoning their attempts and moving on."
Which words in English do you find hardest to pronounce?
Source: www.mirror.co.uk
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