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Are there any words that you pronounce in a way that seems weird to most people? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Corno@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I've always pronounced the word "Southern" to rhyme with howthurn. I know most people say it like "suthurn" instead. I didn't realize that the way I pronounce it is considered weird until recently!

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[-] amelia@feddit.org 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'm German. One day my house was being renovated and they were working with jackhammers to remove parts of the facade. It was incredibly loud and I couldn't bear it. I lived close to university and had recently stopped working in one of the institutes. I knew though that my former colleagues had couches in some of their offices so I thought I'd give them a visit. I walked over to the institute and greeted my Australian former coworker. I explained about the noise in my house and said I was "looking for asylum". Knowing the word "asylum" only from written language, I had no idea it was not actually pronounced "ay suh lum". He asked "you're looking for what?" as he obviously hadn't understood. I repeated "ay suh lum" confidently and he politely said "ah". Not long after, I learned the correct pronunciation of asylum and that memory has haunted me ever since. It's been almost 10 years but I still cringe about it.

[-] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 5 points 4 days ago

I understand the feeling, but that fear of being wrong is a plague, it prevents learning altogether. Especially languages ! we should be brave enough to proudly make mistakes and learn from them. Proudly. With pride

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

English is a bastard language without phonetics so you've just got to memorise every word, every phrase, and of course every idiom since half the language is just archaic expressions cobbled together without rhyme or reason (e.g. "rhyme or reason")

That being said, German has a lot of traps to. The pronunciation of "ee" in himbeere and beerdigung, and guessing the spelling of words using "e" vs "ä" is a nightmare

this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2024

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