A newspaper!
Ha!
I’m sorry, I can’t resist a classic bad joke. But have you ever wondered why the past simple and past participle forms of the verb to read look identical to the present form, but sound different (“red”)? Continue reading
Continuing the themes of the last two days, pronunciation and names, I want to shift focus slightly from issues with pronunciation in a second language, to those native English speakers have with their own tongue. If you search for something like “most annoying mispronunciations,” you’ll find plenty of people venting their frustration. Sometimes, it’s understandable. As I’ve mentioned before, we seem to have an inbuilt resistance to anyone using language differently from us, regardless of which one of us, if either is correct. Other times though, it says more about the person complaining. Here are some of the more common complaints: Continue reading
Pronouncing names correctly, whether they be first names or surnames, is something most of us are understandably concerned about. This is especially the case if you’re in a situation in which you’re with people with surnames which aren’t familiar to you, like being in front of a class of people learning English. It can be tricky, because other languages often have different pronunciations of letters. And, from experience, our knowledge of those differences can vary.
A common example is Spanish names with J, such as José. The classic mistake is to pronounce the J exactly as it’s normally pronounced in English, as in juice or jam. But you might know that in Spanish, it’s usually more like the letter h in English. So, being very culturally sensitive, you pronounce the J like an H, but then, it’s not exactly as simple as that, is it? It’s a little more strongly pronounced, a little throatier than in English, and the o is more emphasised. But then if we try to pronounce it exactly as a Spanish speaker would, it’s embarrassing. Why is that? Continue reading
So here it is, 2017. Hopefully it’s the start of a great year for you. Hopefully none of your favourite celebrities die (but statistically, some probably will). Hopefully if you’re living in Trump’s American or in Post-Brexit Britain, things aren’t too hard for you.
Typically of course, I’m most interested in how you actually say the name of this year. Is it “twenty seventeen,” or “two thousand and seventeen?” Or even “two thousand seventeen,” if you’re American. For me, there’s no hesitation: Continue reading
We all have a store of words that we come across again and again as we read, but we never actually hear spoken. So we then either:
a) have a moment of surprise when we hear it for the first time…
b) hear it spoken aloud, but never associate that sound with its spelling, thinking of them as two separate words (this was the case for me with the word epitome for a long time), or…
c) we go our whole lives never hearing them.
Here are some of the most common words people have this struggle with: Continue reading
6th.
Sixth.
How do you pronounce that word?
To me, it’s always obviously been pronounced phonetically: as it looks, basically. You just say six, and, well, add -th to the end!
Yet in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a trend, particularly among English newsreaders and reporters, of pronouncing the x like a k. Sikth. Continue reading
Poor Wales, they put up a great fight, but a win for Portugal was a fair result, and at least they can be quite proud of getting to the semi-finals at all. Hearing the word Wales in the last few days made me think of the many childhood jokes based on the fact that Wales and Whales sound so similar.
You might have noticed that I’ve just said that Wales and whales sound similar. Not the same: similar. Hang on, you might be thinking: they sound identical! What’s he talking about!?
And you’re right: they are identical. But I’m also right: they’re similar. Isn’t English wonderful!? Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 