4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce

4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

Steven Haddock

4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

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4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

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Why English is difficult to pronounce? In this article, Steven will explain to you 4 key factors you need to know about why is it so hard for you to pronounce words in foreign languages including English.

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4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce

Answer by Steven Haddock, (LL.B. degree, 25 years in litigation, administrative law, collections, bankrupty and professional regulation). All credit goes to Steven Haddock, Thank you!

4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

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4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language)

1. Different languages use different sounds. For example, the “th” sounds in English are rare in other languages, including other Germanic languages. The Koreans don’t have a “b” sound. The German “r” sound is much lighter than the English “r” sound because they don’t drive their tongue into their hard pallet so hard. Spanish has five vowel sounds. English has 12. Danish has more than that. That sound I make when I clear my throat is a real sound in the German “Bach” or the Hebrew “Hanukkah”.

  2. Different languages have different syllable structures. English and Georgian allow for very large syllables and words can have more than one syllable. In English, consonants can appear next to consonants, but in Japanese and Italian that’s unheard of. One of the funniest language videos on the internet is a prank where actors doing an anime voiceover are asked to say “Massachusetts State” which is tough for a native English speaker and impossible for a Japanese speaker who has only limited exposure to English. All “words” in Chinese by contrast are single syllable.

  3. Different languages have different syllable rhythm. Most languages are “syllable timed” with each syllable taking roughly the same amount of time to say. However, English, German and Russian are “stress timed” which means that the stressed syllable is about the same period of time apart, and any unstressed syllable is jammed in. So, the English “comfortable” which is usually pronounced “cum-fert-ble” gets extended by syllable timed speakers to “cum-for-ta-bul”

  4. There are other features. In Chinese, different words can use the same syllable but can be distinguished by their tone. English instead uses tone to denote things like whether or not the sentence is a question rather than a statement or to denote sarcasm. The Japanese word “Hai” (yes) can express a very wide range of levels of agreement between “uh huh” to “absolutely without reservation” depending on how you say it.

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Reference: Steven Haddock, “Why is it so hard for people to pronounce words in foreign languages?” originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. 4 Reasons why English is difficult to pronounce (for any Language) repeat again

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