9 Words Americans Pronounce Wrong Words Americans Mispronounce
I was so embarrassed.
One time, hanging out with friends, I completely
mispronounced a word.
The stress was wrong, the sounds were wrong,
it wasn’t even close.
And it was a grammar word, and I teach English!
We all make mistakes, especially when it comes
to pronouncing words, even native speakers
of English.
Even adults.
So this video is for you, my students, non-native
speakers of English who are sometimes embarrassed
when they mispronounce a word.
You are not alone.
Today, we’re going over 9 words that Americans
have mispronounced.
You’ll learn about pronunciation, you’ll learn
some new vocabulary words, and if you’re a
native speaker and you have a story of mispronouncing
a word, or hearing one mispronounced, please
put it in the comments below.
I love collecting your stories.
As always, if you liked this video or if you
learned something new, please give it a thumbs
up and subscribe with notifications on.
I’d love to see you back here.
The word I mispronounced was this one.
Guess how it’s pronounced.
It’s a noun, and it means a verb being used
as a noun.
It’s used to express something generalized.
Learn, learning, for example.
I’m learning to drive.
There, it’s a verb.
But I could say: The best learning happens
in the real world.
The best learning.
There, I’m using learning as a noun.
This word is pronounced ‘gerund’.
And when I was hanging out with some friends
one weekend, I said: gerund.
Wrong consonants, wrong vowels, wrong stress.
I got everything wrong.
So the camera wasn’t rolling when I said it
but it was rolling when my friend brought
it up again later to make fun of me.
She has pie in her mouth so it’s a little
hard to hear but she says ‘gerund’.
And I say, I was waiting for that to come
up.
Gerund.
I was waiting.
I was waiting for that to come up.
So don’t be like me.
It’s gerund.
Gerund.
We’re just going to have everyone text each
other randomly the word ‘gerund’.
Gerund.
I had never heard this word spoken before,
I’d only ever seen it written.
I came to the conclusion, my pronunciation,
my wrong pronunciation was influenced by my
study of German.
And since I studied German in a classroom
as an adult, it’s possible I heard this word
pronounced in German.
Listen to it.
The first two syllables Americanized it the
pronunciation I chose.
Gerund.
I was waiting.
I was waiting for that to come up. I am not taking the time to explain that. That is getting edited out.
Gerund.
We’re just going to have everyone text each
other randomly the word ‘gerund’.
I will never live that down.
The phrase to live something down is almost
always used in the negative.
I will never live that down.
You won’t live that down.
And it means live long enough to wipe out
memories or effects of something.
I will never live that down.
My friends will always remember that about
me, and probably, they’ll always make fun
of me for that.
Let’s get into a few mispronunciations that
you all suggested in comments to other videos.
One of you suggested ‘chic’.
SH consonant, EE vowel, K. A word of French
origin, Dictionary.com gives just one pronunciation
of it, chic.
I’ve also heard this word mispronounced.
This chic 11,000 square foot house has 5 bedrooms
and 9 bathrooms.
This word is chic.
Not to be confused with cheek.
Or chick, a baby chicken.
Chic.
Very fashionable, stylish.
Do you know anyone who is specially chic?
Here are a few examples of the correct pronunciation.
Men who I think are chic and inspiring.
While women paraded down the boulevard wearing
these chic new gowns.
Make it a little more chic.
The glasses are basically a chic round frame.
Have you ever noticed with ES words like espresso,
especially, escape, these words are sometimes
pronounced as if the S were an X. KS instead
of sss– S. That’s not the pronunciation.
The drink is espresso.
There is no K sound in it.
Espresso, not expresso.
That’s mixing up two words.
Espresso and express.
So you don’t want to say:
Try Espresso.
You know, I just want to emphasize, again,
I like to show clips of people mispronouncing
words to normalize it.
These are not dumb people.
English is just hard.
So for all my students studying English as
a foreign language, even we as native speakers,
we get you.
It’s tough.
Let’s hear some examples of correct pronunciation
of espresso.
Especially.
Not expecially. Not…
This word means particularly. I love roses especially red ones.
And one more like this, escape.
This one’s confusing.
There is a K sound, but it comes after the
S, not before.
Escape.
Escape.
To get away, to avoid capture.
Not excape.
Escape.
So, not:
But instead:
Okay, this next one, Big Mac, thank you for
your suggestion.
People are all over the place with this one.
And some were dictionaries.
Dictionary.com and the Cambridge Dictionary
gave one pronunciation, but it’s not the same
pronunciation.
Dictionary.com says its: eschew.
Cambridge says its: eschew.
So different vowels in the first syllable.
This word, by the way, means to intentionally
avoid something, to give something up.
I’m eschewing dessert this month to lose weight.
For example.
Oxford varies a bit.
They give us eschew, yet another different
vowel in the first syllable, they also say:
eschew is the correct pronunciation.
And Merriam Webster gives us: eschew and eschew.
Two more acceptable pronunciations.
That gives us a total of 6 pronunciations
listed in dictionaries and there’s a little
overlap from dictionary to dictionary.
That’s rare.
I don’t think I’ve ever come across another
word where there is such little agreement
among major dictionaries on pronunciation.
With this in mind, I guess, maybe there’s
no wrong pronunciation.
I think you could reasonably defend any of
these 6 options.
So, what’s most common?
I went to one of my favorite research sites,
Youglish, and I found this pronunciation breakdown.
Eschew is definitely the most common pronunciation
in American English.
Even though some of the major dictionaries
don’t even list it as a pronunciation.
This is a pretty sophisticated word so I’m
guessing it might be new to a lot of my students.
Remember, the definition is to avoid something.
To give something up.
We’re going to listen to 10 examples now.
Real life examples so you can see different
situations and sentences to build your understanding
of how to use this word.
You’ll hear a couple different pronunciations.
And now, we’re going to have to move on with
one that has more to do with writing.
Do you know these two words?
Americans sometimes mix them up in writing
and it’s easy to see why.
One of them is loose, and the other one is
lose.
One is spelled with one O and the other, two,
but the difference in pronunciation isn’t
the vowel, it’s the ending consonant.
One is an S, loose, the other is a Z, lose.
The one with one O, the verb, has the Z pronunciation.
When the final sound is voiced, like here,
zzz, that’s a voiced sound, the Z.
It tends to make the vowel longer.
So think of the OO vowel being longer here
that in lose, which is the opposite of what
you might think because it’s written with
just one letter O and the other, with two.
But the vowel here is longer.
Lose.
With the weak ending Z.
This is a verb and it means to come to be
without something.
To fail to retain something.
sample sentences: I might lose my job.
I’m ordering two pair because I know at some
point, we’ll lose one of his mittens.
Past tense, lost.
Drop the E, add a T, and the vowel changes.
Now, AH as in Father.
This can be a trick you use to help you in
writing.
If it’s the verb, if you can make it a past
tense with lost, one O in lost, so one O in
lose.
That might keep you from accidentally spelling
with two O’s.
With two O’s, loose, the ending is the S sound.
This is most commonly an adjective, meaning
free.
Released, not secure, not tight.
Buying shoes for Stoney, we have to check:
are they too tight?
Too loose?
Or just right?
Recently, I found my colleague Tom, who’s
been teaching American English Pronunciation
with me for over 10 years, mispronouncing
a word.
I was listening to some audio he recorded
for the Academy.
We have lots of audio training in the Academy,
at RachelsEnglishAcademy.com and he recorded
this word.
In American English, it’s pronounced nauseous
with the SH sound.
Tom said: nauseous.
Djzz– Djzz– similar to sh– but there’s
voice in it.
Sh– Djzz– Sh– Djzz– Two different sounds.
I did see in the dictionary that Djzz– is
an acceptable pronunciation in British English.
But of all the clips I found online, I only
found one example of that.
In all the others, it was an SH or this very
British pronunciation: nauseous.
In American English, it’s with the sh– SH
sound: nauseous.
But look at this: the noun, nausea, the Djzz–
sound is now that most common pronunciation
of this word.
Nauseous.
Shh– Adjective.
Nausea.
Djzz– Noun.
Nausea.
A feeling of sickness in the stomach.
Nauseous.
An adjective, feeling that sickness.
I feel nauseous.
I feel like I might throw up.
Is there a word you’ve mispronounced terribly?
Put it in the comments below, let’s support
our brave learners of English by sharing our
own embarrassing stories.
It might even inspire a future video here
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