What's your favorite pronunciation goof?

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Ceit, Dec 9, 2005.

  1. Ceit

    Ceit Well-Known Member

    I think this is the right forum for this question, since I'm not focusing on the Czech language in particular. I'm asking everybody, whatever their native language is, who has the cutest, funniest or weirdest problems learning their language. Here's my example: German speakers learning English seem to overcorrect with /w/ and say things like "I live in a small willage near Wienna." I'm not making fun or anything, I think it's cute, and it's not like you can't understand what they mean. Who's next?
     
  2. Viktor

    Viktor Well-Known Member

    My parents "house language (s)" was Czech & German, and I've no problems with the R's or Z's or any other Czech language tongue twisteres. They all come out like a native speaker.

    However, in English, after speaking the language for 45 years the words; CONNETICUT , LATTICE or RIVALRY are still too difficult to pronounce the first time around (it takes me several tries). .

    I must have suffered premanent damage to the tongue from my mother tongue (Czech) due to the R's and Z's perfect pronounciation my parents drilled into me as a child.
     
  3. GlennInFlorida

    GlennInFlorida Well-Known Member

    Well, as a speaker of American english, one of my most frequent problems (aside from the infamous ř and a general failure to enunciate) is not remembering to use an extended thumb for the number one. I almost invariably use an extended index finger with my thumb not so tightly closed to my fist - looks just like the Czech hand sign for two. "Jedno pivo, prosím." "Dvě?"
     
  4. Ruzete

    Ruzete Well-Known Member

    I agree with GlennInFlorida about the ř, but its not as bad as the ch in the abeceda, thats my opinion at least and I am a native English speaker!
     
  5. brook

    brook Well-Known Member

    While it's not exactly a pronunciation thing, I used to think it was cute when my czech boyfriend at the time would say, "the nature" instead of "nature." Sometimes I just couldn't bring myself to correct him, because there was a certain charm in the way he expressed himself, mistakes and all. :mrgreen:
     
  6. Kanadanka

    Kanadanka Well-Known Member

    "v" and "w" definitely, I still occasionally invite people to "come wisit me", and not knowing where articles go (sticking 'a' and 'the' where they don't belong, while omitting them in the customary places). Fortunately, I have an excellent secretary who just quietly rearranges them. Strangely, I usually use the right NUMBER of them in my text, just the placement is odd.
    Oh, and occasionally I seem to use accents on the wrong syllables in rare words (or as my English husband says "acCENT on the wrong syLLAble"
    Hana
     
  7. brigitte

    brigitte Well-Known Member

    In English - Read and Red!! Several meanings one pronounciation.

    Quite a few English words are similar. My favourite phrase to get wrong is 'double entendre' French for 'double meaning'. It is used often to describe jokes and comedy stuff, but I spent years mispronouncing it, even when I realised I was saying it wrong, I instinctively still say it the way I always did.

    A lot of English restaurants and cookery books contain references in French phrases to describe either methods of cooking or presentation. I can work out a lot of French phrases on menus, and to a degree, Italian, and know a lot as we were taught most of it at school in the 70s.

    Restaurants often have elaborate ways of describing their food on menus, when what you are getting is a basic meal! Pommes Frites are chips, Poisson is fish Pois are peas, so you'll actually be getting fish, chips and peas...... :lol: I just look at the menu, read and think "well that is fish and chips" Poisson can be with other word to describe the particular fish, onlly difference.... :wink:
     
  8. l'oiseaujaune

    l'oiseaujaune New Member

    I usually screw up my R's in French/German. I rarely can correctly pronounce French words like "raison". Too often I accidentally replace that particular R sound as a G or a rough H. French: "Khaison" or "Gaison", and German "Zurückgehen" usually comes out as "Zukhückgehen/Zugückgehen". My favorite pronuciation goof that people learning English make would have to be any of the myriad of sounds one hears when a foreigner tries to pronounce the English TH sound. "Zat one over dere". I have to agree that almost any foreign accent sounds cute, I even see it as an endearing quality in a person. I don't think that's a two way street however (for example, I would think an American having a moderate to heavy accent when speaking Czech would probably be frowned upon by most native Czech-speakers).
     
  9. Kanadanka

    Kanadanka Well-Known Member

    I find some foreigners (Czechs included) speaking English in Canada to sound really comical when saying prrrrrrrrrrrrrs for "purse" and trrrrrrty for thirty - they use the hard trilled 'r' instead of the soft english 'r'
     

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