If looked at latest statistics, then 1,500 million people across the globe use English in daily life for personal as well as professional usage. If you belong to the same category where you are confident about your English usage, then wont you agree that there two aspects where English is very tough – spelling and pronunciation.
Spelling and pronunciation in English does not go hand-in-hand. If you think going by syllable, is the remedy – then, that might make your spelling correct, but pronunciation completely wrong. Again, if syllable makes your pronunciation right, you might be spelling it completely wrong.
As a sound solution, UrbanPro English teachers community lists ten difficult English words that you can read and see if you can pronounce them right? While initially the list looks easy, but do go through the following explanations to check where you went wrong.
Take the challenge to pronounce these English words correct, right now.
Colonel
Pronunciation : ker – nel
Meaning : high-ranking officer in the army
During the 1500s, the English borrowed some terminologies from the French to use in their armed forces and ‘colonel’ was one of them. While the french continue to pronounce the word as per syllable, the English altered the pronunciation as per their own comfort. Hence, the right pronunciation of colonel in English is ‘ker-nel’.
Arctic
Pronunciation: ar-tic
Meaning: region in the North Pole
This small word has a distinguished pronunciation where the first ‘c’ is silent making it, ‘ar-tic’.
Mojito
Pronunciation: (UK) mo-hi-to
Meaning: A cocktail drink composed of five ingredients namely white rum, sugar or sugar cane juice, lime juice, soda water, and mint.
For Mojito, the mid syllable ‘j’ is silent. However, the pronunciation of the word alters in US and UK. While is UK it is, mo-hi-to, in US, its called mo-hi-yo. Now it depends on you pick the US or UK version, but please don’t spell the word as per syllable, as mo-ji-to – that’s completely wrong.
Receipt
Pronunciation: Re-ce-it
Meaning: kind of a bill or confirmation of payment on paper
You may wonder how this simple everyday word have a different pronunciation? To rectify. this can be pronounced completely by syllable but keep ‘p’ in silence. That will bring out the right pronunciation of the word, which is re-ce-it.
Impetuous
Pronunciation: impe-chu-ous
Meaning: quick action done without any concern or care
To explain this, we will use another example like ‘lecture’. Exactly how, t is pronounced as ch in the word lecture, in case of impetuos, the same happens. T becomes a ch pronunciation in the word and finally you have to utter it as impe-chu-ous.
Cocoa
Pronunciation: koh-koh
Meaning: a powder from cacao seeds
The second food word in the list that has a different pronunciation than its spelling is ‘cocoa’. Simply make the last ‘a’ silent and its good to hear. So, the pronunciation of cocoa is ‘koh-koh’.
Lieutenant
Pronunciation : lef-tenant
Meaning: A prestigious position in the army
In case of this word, those who spell it right mostly pronounce it wrong and those who pronounce it right spells it wrong. To put it simply, the spelling and pronunciation of this word stands exactly opposite to each other. The right pronunciation of the word is ‘lef-tenant’.
Entrepreneur
Pronunciation : En-tre-pre-neur
Meaning: businessman
Three factors complicates this word – French origin, long term and complex spelling. However, the world accepts the American pronunciation of this mostly which is split into four halves – ‘En-tre-pre-neur’.
Mortgage
Pronunciation: mor-gage
Meaning: a legal document relating to properties
Pronouncing this word is very easy if you can make the ‘t’ silent and put it out as mor-gage.
Cyclical
Pronunciation: si-cli-cal
Meaning: cycling in loop
While pronouncing this, do not remember the word cycle – that will make it easy for you to put this right. Break the word into three fragments ‘si-cli-cal’ and you are sure to be right.
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