26 Sep

English pronunciation

Who taught : Andrew, Jake, James and Carl

There is a new tv show started last week. It is called, “Outsourced.” I love it. It shows a lot of cultural differences between America and India. You should really try to watch it and let’s talk about it later.

Do you know what file type I hate most? It is zip file.

Do you know why? Well… it is so hard to pronounce. A few months ago, I was having a meeting with a client and there were James, one of my old coworkers, and Carl, my old boss. After the meeting, I went into Carl’s room to have another meeting and, at the end of the meeting, he taught me how to pronounce zip correctly. And, interestingly, when James and I had brunch together last Saturday, he mentioned about his feeling about my pronunciation of zip file. It is actually kind of frustrating to have the feeling that I would never be able to have a correct pronunciation for some of the alphabets or words.

There are a few other alphabets or words that are hard to pronounce correctly. (Here, I mean really correctly like Americans, not like mimicking the sound!)

1. v and th

A lot of Koreans, or Asians, pronounce this incorrectly so that many American people think we are saying “b” instead. For example, when you are looking for a “vase” but if you pronounce it incorrectly, then it becomes “base.” The other example is any word having “th.” More specifically, if you trying to say that you are “thinking” now but, if you say it incorrectly, then it becomes to mean that you are “sinking” now. Then your American friends would be like, “to where are you sinking down?”

2. wood

This one looks pretty easy to pronounce but it, in fact, is very hard to pronounce correctly. Jessy has a friend who came to the U.S. around 20 years ago when she was around 25 years old. She has children who of course are native English speakers. One time, she had a conversation with her children and she said “wood.” As soon as she said that word, her children said to her, “Mom, that is not correct. Say it again!” So, she tried again and again but still the pronunciation was not correct. You know what happened eventually. Her children said, “Mom! You are never gonna be able to pronounce it correctly at all.”

How frustrating it is! Remember! She has been living in the U.S. for 20 years. 20 years!

3. Square or Squirrel

Well, I had a very similar experience with what Jessy’s friend had. I live in a neighborhood, called Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh. One time, I was talking about this neighborhood to Andrew and Jake. As soon as I said it, they were like, “Terry! What? Say it again!” So, I kind of realized that I spoke it incorrectly and tried really really hard to pronounce it correctly. Then, they said, “That is pretty good. Before, it was not correct.”

Then, a few days ago, I was talking about something and I said “Square Root” to Andrew and Jake. Then, they were like, “Hey! Terry! Say it again?” Yeah, they challenged me again. So, I tried again. Andrew and Jake! How was I? Do you think I need more practices? I guess so, right?

So, as a non-native English speaker, what is the hardest word or alphabet for you to pronounce? I think mine is “Z” alphabet and any word having it like Zoo or Zip. The real hope I have now is I wish I can speak those ones really good so that no one can recognize me as a non-native English speaker. There must be some ways to practice. Does anybody know how to practice to pronounce those alphabets correctly?

15 thoughts on “English pronunciation”

  1. Andrew Cox -

    I didn’t know you had trouble with “Z”. Now I really want to hear you say “zip” 🙂

    You are much better with “squirrel” now, but the one that really cracked me up was “Bakery Square”.

    There’s a really fun phrase from the show “30 Rock”. One of the main characters (Jenna) was going to be in a movie called, “The Rural Juror”, but she could never pronounce it right so everyone was talking behind her back trying to figure out what the actual title of the movie was. She said it more like, “The Rir Jir”. It’s a tough one even for native English speakers. You try it!

    Reply
  3. Patty -

    I like this post. It reminds me of a funny story with one of my class mates…

    One morning, I talked to a classmate about a homework problem. I thought the answer was one thing, and he thought the opposite, but neither of us were sure. Later that day, I was in the classroom before class started, and my classmate ran into the room and exclaimed, “Patty, you’re white! You’re white!” (FYI, I am caucasian and my classmate is Korean). I smiled and gave him a puzzled look and said, “Yes, I am white…?”, but I didn’t know why he was so excited about stating the obvious. And then he started laughing when he realized what I thought he was saying. He was saying “You’re right” as in, I was correct about the homework problem. To my ears when he said “right”, it sounded like “white” because there was a little bit of “w” sound. When he intends to say a word with “w”, he emphasizes the “w” sound much more obviously — that is, when he said “right” and “white” immediately after each other, you could tell the difference. Terry, do you know what I mean? This is a long story but it was a great shared laugh at the time!

    Reply
    • Terry -

      Patty, I totally know what you mean. “R” sound is also one of the hardest alphabets to pronounce for Koreans. I am sure you noticed that Koreans have a hard time to distinguish “R” from “L.” So, for example, when I call a friend whose name is Kerry, some friends think I am calling another person whose name is “Kelly.” And, there are like, “Hey! Terry, there is no Kelly here.” So funny 🙂

      Reply
  5. Jason Jeong -

    Native speakers told that i don’t have any problems about my pronounciation “to undertand”. So i recorded my voice to evaluate it by myself, but that was filled with the monotonous voice.

    There’s no varied intonation and even any feeling. I found my pronounciation and intonation are totally suck. 🙂

    Reply
    • Terry -

      Intonation is also very tricky. I remember I said “encompass” to my friend, Andrew, he corrected my intonation since mine was not correct. And, Americans cannot actually understand what I am talking about if intonation is incorrect. I think recording English speaking is a great way of practicing English. Way to go!

      Reply
      • Jason Jeong -

        Hey, Terry!
        Something struck me that this blog would be the more valuable and useful one for non-native english speakers if you add some shortcut menus like MP3 file.

        So we non-native english speakers can listen the real american voice and emulate native speakers’ varied pronunciation and intonation.

        I know you are busy, but it’s not whinning but “Request” as one of the big fan of your blog. 🙂 I believe you could be considering it worthy for Non-native english speakers.

        Reply

Leave a Reply