People who speak English have no problem with Worcester Leicester, Gloucester. This is because they are places in England where we speak English not American.
At what point does it go from "wrong" to being a part of a dialect though? If the majority of Americans pronounce something "wrong" at that point is it not just the American dialect for that word?
Language is all about being understood! It's mispronounced if you can't be understood or clarification is needed, but it's dialect instead if it's a common way to say it among similar speakers to you. English is adopting new words all the time from dialects, so if "mischievious" isn't a word now, I think it soon will be!
Languages are fluid. They change over time. The word "internet" didn't exist 50 years ago. Slang and "mispronounced" words are what make accents unique.
No. It's wrong. Language must be preserved... Any Language ... correctly preserved. There can be too many variations, but the correct ones are just that, correct. Even phrases or sentences are destroying the language. Finna...for "fixing too"! You get my point. It must be preserved in its correct form. Alterations in "texting" are short cuts, but should not be acceptable for formal language...ever.
You are so right. The curriculum taught at the Catholic school I attended in Philadelphia during the 60s, was leagues away from what I had been accustomed to when I was in public school. It was in that Catholic school that I was taught how to diagram a sentence. Spelling bees were frequent, and we dreaded misspelling a word. Penmanship was emphasized and so was neatness. Elegant cursive, with the letters always leaning right, won accolades. Our notebooks were open for inspection and were given weekly notices. Incorrect grammar, sloppy usage, and heaven forbid, foul language received swift and firm corrections. To this day, I'm eternally grateful to those devoted nuns.
It requires mention that because English was composed from several languages, its rules of pronunciation are quite inconsistent. The pronunciation of an English word is most often based upon the language from which it came. This is why people in a spelling bee contest ask the language and history of an unfamiliar word before attempting to spell it. Thanks Rachel!
English isn't "composed" from several languages. It has borrowed words from many languages, but that's not the same thing. English is Germanic language.
@@reh3884 Just curious as a non expert, what is the difference between composed and borrowed? I found his answer fascinating as well as your rebuttal, but a little confused why this might be a source of contention.
@@ninjaclan83 English is a western Germanic language brought over by Anglo Saxons. It does feature latin but it is classified as Germanic but I guess you mean that it replaced British Latin? I suppose you're right.
In the late 80's, I became a Realtor.... and, even after ALL these years, folks still say it incorrectly, by adding a syllable, an "a" in between "real" and "tor"..... Thanks for this video, it was awesome, and very informative.... =)
Someone told me once, you should take caution when judging people that mispronounce words because this stems from reading... An educating activity. Not everyone falls into social circles with diverse vocabularies. The fact that these people are doing it on their own, should be commended. It's difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Absolutely true! My son, when in second grade, would fearlessly read aloud, sounding out unknown words according to the phonics he'd learned in school.
The problem is that so many of these adults who are pronouncing things totally wrong is that they are so pigheaded and think they are correct and can't be shown the correct way. Or a lot of the attitude is "oh, so what?". And the reading defense I'm reading in the comments is really weak. That's what school and parents are for. To flesh out what is read. Are we basically saying that "not everyone falling into social circles with diverse vocabularies" is given a pass because, well, poor schools, peers and parents?
@@Booshka823 if you lived in my region, you might only know certain words from reading or from a subscription to a cinema channel. Around here - coal country, Appalachia - it has been considered rude to use any but the most basic vocabulary. So I’m not about to look down on anyone who might know a word without having heard it.
It's also based off where you're from. People have accents that slightly throw off the way they pronounce things. Another thing is that growing up, you learn from others on how to say a word because in that area that's how they pronounce it. Therefore, when people "mispronounce" a word it's not necessarily incorrect, their accent can confuse others, or how they were taught to pronounce it.
Is there any English Teacher for natives over there? Teachers from high school or elementary school? I wonder how is it like? When you correct an essay of a 6th grade student, do you find many writing mistakes? How long does it take for a native to become 'native' in speaking and writing?? Only in English we see things like that: >> clothes = close >> no = know >> would = wood >> draught = draft But in portuguese we also make many grammar mistakes, but the pronunciation is usually the same. 🙏🏼 Thank you Rachel!
In British English 'schedule' is pronounced with a soft 'ch' - 'shedule' (although, with the influence of American movies, many younger people now say 'skedule').
I think the Oxford English Dictionary would state, schedule is pronounced with a soft a sshh, as in shed. Some people may think they sound more American by saying skedule.
“Draught” is the British spelling of the word. I’m surprised she even put that in here, seeing as it seems she’s teaching American English. You will only ever see “draft” in America
@@kateissues that’s because “draught” and “draft” are pronounced the same. “Draft” is the American English spelling, and “draught” is the British English spelling
Not to mention the -ique words she talks about are all French based words. They are not English at all, we just use the French word because we don't have a better English one.
Why do English speaking newscasters persist in mispronouncing Foreign place names? There is No Cobble Afghanistan! Ka-bule! Many others over the years as if they are trying to change the language. Keep educating us. Thank you.
90% of these are words with French origin. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to learn English if your mother language is not of Latin origin. I work all over the world and am continually humbled by the quality of English spoken by people from far flung continents.
A lot of French words entered the English language after the Norman conquest of 1066. Norman French was the language of the ruling classes at the time.
Some people think its a handicap to only be able to speak english. I dont think so. Its an amalgamation of different languages over different periods. As long as you do a bit of etymological research its fairly easy to recognize patterns in other languages. Save for semitic and asian languages of course.
As a Canadian (where we retain more of the French pronunciations and spellings) some American pronunciations sound REALLY weird to the ears like first time I heard an American pronounce “foyer”. 🤔Americans pronounce the “er” ending as in better or summer.. but in French an “er” ending generally pronounced as a long a so we pronounce it ‘foi-yay’ We also have spelling like “cheque” (check as in banking)… and “centre” but pronounce center.. 🤪
I think this is as much a grammar problem. If a person realized that "have" is often part of a part tense expression, they might remember what is correct.
I have never heard an American ever use the word, "queue" for a line. In fact when an English person asked me if I "were in the queue," I did not know what she meant.
Here's another way to understand the word 'queue' it is read as [k-yoo] - the letter group QUE forms the [k] sound - think of antique [an-teek] etc., and the last 2 letters -UE creates the vowel sound [yoo] - as in other words like cue [k-yoo] due [d-yoo] etc. :)
@@SuperMagnetizer The word 'queue' cannot be 'pronounced' as 'line.' But the word 'line' is used in America instead of the word 'queue.' And the word 'queue' and 'cue' are both pronounced EXACTLY the same as [k-yoo] - because they are 'heteronyms' - words with different spelling, but the same pronunciation. :)
0:29 echelon 3:42 schedule 4:47 acai 5:49 mischievous 6:31 triathlon 7:28 facade 7:57 vague and vogue 9:10 queue 10:05 antique and other words that end in -ique 11:06 artisanal 11:41 cognac 12:08 draught, drought, draft 13:03 colonel 13:32 Worcestershire More suggested words: feng shui and qi (thank you, China), abseil and realpolitik (thank you, Germany), rambutan (thank you, Malaysia), and all these words from French: carte blanche (not carte blanc), coup de grace (not like Mardi Gras), lieu, ombre, pied-à-terre, repartee, reveille, and trompe l'oeil, which is what French words in English do - fool the eye.
Well I know how to pronounce all of these words but I had extensive phonics training with vocabulary taught all the way through high school. My teachers were so particular about knowing the spelling, the syllables and the phonetic sounds. We had to know the spelling, the syllables, the pronunciation and how to use it in a sentence for every word. The lack of proper training in the English language is pathetic.
Rachel: just as " açaí " has the French letter "ç", (la cédille) so does the French word "façade": the spelling of façade often being changed to "facade", in English, for obvious reasons. And, in remembering my high school study of the Spanish language, I was reminded that (in both English and Spanish) the letter "c" sounds like a "k" right before the vowels "a", "o", and "u". Examples are as follows: Cat [kat] Cob Cute If the "c" precedes "e" or "i", it has an "s" sound: Cent Citrus / cite... [etc.] Where "façade" differs is in the use of the French "ç" (which guarantees that an "s" sound is made, and not a "k"). NOTE (for what it's worth): In the 1950s, my brother and I "conjured up" our own spellings for words we heard people say, but for which we couldn't find a spelling (in our large Webster's dictionary). >>> And, "façade" was one such word... (So, my brother-- until he got older-- creatively spelled it "fasod".)
Precisely what I came here to say. Thanks for sparing me from typing all of that 😂 We use the Ç in Portuguese as you remember from Spanish. I think English should keep the “cedilha” (what we call the extra bit under the C) in order to make the pronunciation more clear. Speaking of strange words. Have you ever read and then heard how the word for “a lot” is pronounced in french?! That one got me the first time!
Others enunciate words how they learned at home. “SCH” is a Deutsch or Germany for “SH”. English is a composite of mean words from different languages.
Yes, English has Germanic and Romance spelling conventions, which is why it's all over the place. And then pronunciations have changed over the centuries, but spelling stays mostly static. Other languages usually change the spellings of loanwords, but English doesn't.
It would be helpful to mention the etymology of these words, and the cultures from which they are borrowed. Not only would it help with guessing the pronunciation on reading, it helps to estimate meaning. Echelon is French. Chaos is Greek. Schlep is Yiddish. Adding background would not only make this video more interesting than just going through a list, it would help the viewer retain the knowledge, rather than simply try to memorize data.
Schedule with the "k" phoneme is not the only correct pronunciation, it is actually in a way just "accepted". The most corrected one would be as the British do with the "sch" phoneme, as it was originally a French word. Also, açaí cannot really be said to be an American word as well, it is actually tupi-guarani adapted to Portuguese, so it is easy to understand why it is mispronounced, it basically is a foreign word for native speakers.
I'm Brazilian and foreigners can never say "açaí" properly because they don't know that the "ç" has an 'S' sound and that the accent on the I changes the pronunciation :P Portuguese is a difficult language for everyone, but especially English speakers... The name 'João' is confusing even to those who know another Romance language.
As time passes, language, words and pronunciations change amongst all cultures. What one deems appropriate, inappropriate or wrong today, may likely be accepted, omitted or changed in the future.
What your describing would be slang but no matter how much time passes words are still supposed to be said correctly. When your saying a word completely wrong no matter where you are or if the person your speaking to cares or not, if you say the word wrong it’s still wrong.
@@catrivera7463 Well... I see your point, but that's debatable: For example, the Mexican Spanish letter "i griega" (y) and the "elle" [EH-yay] both have exactly the same sound. >>> Some individuals who really never learned to spell well use the "y" instead of "ll" in words/word phrases like these: "las yamas (llamas)" >>> Las 'yamas' nos quemaron. >> (The flames burned us.) "me yamo (llamo)... >>> Me 'yamo' Juan. >> (My name is John.) THE PROBLEM, however, isn't in Mexico: they learn impeccable Spanish in school. >>> It is really problematic in other (unnamed) places, because of slang and a thing called laziness: it is these two factors, I believe, that account for the changes in pronunciation that I have heard, among Spanish speakers in various (unnamed) places, over the last 50 years...
As a native speaker of English I enjoy watching this because I am learning French right now and it is nice to know I’m a native speaker of a very hard language to learn
😅give me a break while I eat my salmon. Oops! I mean "samen." I am 82 years old and only a few teeth left. So the way I pronounce words now is a new form of English. 😄Keep up the good work!
We were taught phonetics back in the 60s. I've read thousands of books. If I didn't know what a word meant through context or if I wasn't sure of its pronunciation, I was taught to use the dictionary.
That only helps if you have been taught the phonetic alphabet. I have not, and I was educated in the 1960s and 1970s. I have little or no idea of what each of the symbols mean or what sound they designate. Unless I hear the word spoken, I don’t know the pronunciation.
Vikki Taylor Yes! they taught us the diacritical markings (for long and short vowels , etc.), dipthongs, the schwa sound and all that stuff. It was foolproof! I have noticed online they now either use completely different markings, call them them different names or lump everything into this "universal" code called IPA which makes no sense to me at all. Why fix something that is not broken? We taught our children how to read phonetically since they do not teach it that way anymore. SMH. It's a "guess and go" method now. Look at the whole word and try to guess what it is by the context of a sentence. So dumb.
@cattycorner...There are so many things they no longer teach in school. It seems the goal is longer learning but graduation. I learned how to count without a calculator (money, too!), how to write cursive, how to type, word origins (which helps with spelling and pronunciation!), typing with all my digits (not just my thumbs!), grammer, math, and many other things I use daily...based on current curricula I think the jobs of our educators have become increasingly difficult and our children are suffering because of it. Morality and accountability are two topics that deserve their own forum! Thank you for listening!
I’m from America originally, I say everything correctly just like it was in the 1960’s. Now I say everything wrong decades later. I didn’t change the world did. Even the new elementary teachers say I am no longer saying it the way it is taught now.
I appreciate your challenge & struggle; I only fared well because of growing up in an American English household where my Granny was an English teacher! To all of those who undertake learning English the world around, I tip my hat and applaud your efforts!
My supervisor asked me to write her retirement letter, because she wanted it “gramorically correct”. Her favorite expressions were “it’s a tapestry of justice, and I could care less”. SMH
@@shelbymanners6729 - Or people that use "was" instead of "were". Or, instead of pronouncing the TH sound at the ends of certain words, they use an F. Earf instead of earth, Teef instead of teeth, birf instead of birth etc.
Wow outstanding video. All words are equally crucial but after this video, I am able to pronounce correctly are; schedule, queue, boutique, vague, vogue etc. I am thankful to you Mrs Rachel.
Is this video popping up in everyone's feed or something? Anyway, when people say "expresso" when ordering coffee really grinds my gears for some reason.
“Acrossed” instead of “across” “Ambidextrious” instead of “ambidextrous” “Lacksadaisical” instead of “lackadaisical” Some more mispronunciations with the potential to ruin my mood for the day.
Echelon comes from the French échelon, a word whose literal meaning is “rung of a ladder.” Initially it was confined to military use, to refer to a step-like formation of troops. It is not English
I was born in the US, raised in the UK & I have never heard/seen this word before. I had to look up it’s meaning. Thought it sounded French though so thanks for this clarification!
Actually, I've never heard anyone mispronounce "echelon" until this video, so I think most Americans -- certainly all that I know -- have no problem with the word "echelon."
Didn’t make it to the second word of the video. Never, in over fifty years, have I heard anyone say echelon wrong. Yet one person on an obscure video she watched, used one word wrong, and it’s a word all Americans use wrong.
This and other of your videos demonstrate just how surprisingly much of modern English actually comes from French. In a RUclips video i saw recently, it was said that MORE of modern English comes from older, "country" French than even from earlier forms of English. There are obvious examples like "cognac", but even words like " guard", "study", and "restaurant" come from French. They even said there is more "country" French in modern English than there is in modern "Parisian" French itself. One thing is for sure: English is WAY more French than most people realize. Fun channel!
English is such a language of words borrowed from other languages, it's helpful to know the country of origin, because borrowed words often retain their original pronunciation. For example, "echelon" is from the French, where "ech..." is usually pronounced 'esh...', and "chaos" is from the Greek, where any "ch" sounds like a hard 'k', like the Greek letter "chi" ("Χ" in the Greek alphabet), pronounced 'kee'. English can be challenging due to the numerous borrowed words, but also fun, like traveling the world! Bon voyage!!
English and other languages of europe are latin origin languages. So there are many similar words among them. Languages are formed by communication and movement of people, cultures...so english borrows from others and others borrow from english ofcourse. "Good Morning" and "Guten Morgen" in German sound similar...so we can't say which language borrows from which language cause we are not the first people who use it.
Worrying about pronunciation is such a blue sky problem. So you say a word wrong? Big deal. I prefer to hide my intelligence anyways. If someone is going to think i'm not very smart that is great. It's always better to have low expectations and to take your enemies by surprise.
I'm Brazilian and "açaí" is a word that exists in Portuguese, but as said before, has Tupi Guarani origin like a lot of words we use here. Remember that the 'Ç' letter (C-cedilla) has an 'S' sound, and that the "Í" changes the pronunciation. So it's like ah-sah-EE as she said. "Tapioca" is also mispronounced sometimes.
One of my college professors, asked me during class if I read a lot. When I asked why, he said it was because I kept mispronouncing words due to being more familiar with reading them versus hearing them. Apparently his son was the same way. It can be an interesting thing to listen for.
I mispronounce words I learned through reading, too. I was surprised to hear the woman in the video say this, because I never heard anyone say that before though I figured I hadn't heard them spoken. My friend can pronounce almost anything right but he's a terrible speller! Either he doesn't read as much or it's just a different skill set (I can Spell almost anything). I figure he must have had intellectual parents who used these words; my parents were more earthy. But maybe his ear is better while I'm more observant visually. Or maybe I just don't question my assumptions enough! (Some words I've learned correctly from hearing him: papyrus; scythe; unwieldy..)
I like talking a lil messed up casually. It makes people listen when I switch gears and speak very clearly. Different strokes for different folks and situations. It imparts nuance that can be an important component of the info conveyed.
@@Catsface99 that's like saying only people from Spain speak Spanish correctly. But all the other dialects (Puerto Rican, Cuban, Colombian, etc) are correct in their dialects and the way they evolved, just as American English is correct because that's how it has evolved from British English.
There's multiple English dialects, so naturally many words are going to be said differently. English is Germanic, with Greek and Latin roots and is constantly changing with each generation.
The whole muddle with English really starts in 1066, when Anglo-Norman began to be incorporated into Old English. It wasn't purely Germanic after that. That's why Middle English is actually pretty intelligible to Modern English speakers, whereas Old English might as well be a foreign language. Compare The Canterbury Tales' "Whan that Apryll with his shoures soote" to Beowulf's "Hwaet! We gardena in geerdagum..."
you can't really call them dialects, different accents or different "habits" for saying certain words a certain way or certain phrases. Just now I've been watching British Detective Series "Vera" again. Boy do they come up with some whoppers! I have no idea what they just said or what it means or what they are talking about. But that is mostly from the Newcastle locals with their Geordie accents. The actress playing "Vera" is from Kent. I'm like "what is that word? What does that mean?" Wow!!
@@christopherhelton6999 Yup! That Damn William again!! Muddling things up!! I have a copy of the original written Magna Carta (1215 A.D.) hanging on my wall, with a typed up Modern English translation hanging up next to it. Now, maybe, I can make out a few words from the original. Man is it a nightmare.
@@aspenrebel you absolutely can call them dialects. Dialects encompass both differences in pronunciation as well as differences in vocabulary. A good way to understand this is that a sociolect is itself a dialect, specifically a dialect of a particular social class, usually confined to a particular area. A great example of a sociolect that is very commonly seen in media would be valleyspeak, which outright popularized the use of "like" as a discourse marker in American English.
Nice, thanks, wouldn’t have known that otherwise. Thankfully, I’ve never had the misfortune of mispronouncing most words, even those I hardly use. I just don’t see how anyone could make simple mistakes like that.
This video is excellent, but it drove me nuts that you didn't touch on the etymology, which is the entire reason English is so damn complex and inconsistent. Knowing the origins of the word absolutely helps pronounce it. Is it greek, germanic, latinate, french? I think this is the real reason that many Americans don't know how to pronounce words or names well. We're generally very ignorant of other languages and cultures, despite being a society comprised of all the cultures of the world.
My wife said there are no words in the English language that use every vowel and in the correct alphabetical order. But I think she was speaking facetiously.
"mel-Lock-a-ny" Someone I went to school with thought it was the pronunciation of "melancholy," and that when people said "melancholy," they were using a different word.
As a retired ESL instructor myself, with a specialization in accent reduction, I recommend that you also let people know the origins of these words. For example, acai, vogue, and facade have French etymologies. This may help students understand why they are pronounced the way they are.
Not every word that has a “ç” comes from French. Açaí is native to South America and uses the Portuguese phonetics for a Tupi word. Tupi is one of the hundreds of languages spoken by tribal people from the Amazon. So while the “ç” comes from Portuguese (the language spoken in Brazil), the word is very much _not_ European, especially not French.
@@gioctw ok… but as you said, it was spelled phonetically in portuguese, which like french, uses cedillas. so, if people knew what a cedilla was and how to pronounce them, then maybe they’d have an easier time pronouncing the words that contain them.
Depends, because supposably IS a word, it is just used out of context most of the time. It means "able to be supposed". So, if I know you like chocolate, then supposably you will like a Hershey bar. Supposedly means "according to what is generally assumed or believed". As in "Supposedly she is going to pay me back next week".
@@idw9159 Not really Ian. The double dot over the I, as in naive, is the French spelling for the diphthong a-i. In Portuguese, that same sound is represented by the symbol over the í. Hence, açaí.
How about segue - I've always said "seg-way" so I was surprised when I heard a friend say "see-goo". I knew that pronunciation was important to her, so we looked it up. (And I knew that she also learned words by reading.) Well, we found that it's correctly said seg-way. Has anyone else had a problem with this one?
I've never heard anyone say it that way but I can understand how someone might think that's how it's pronounced. As you said, just another example of learning words by reading :)
Mischievous is such a word that the proper pronunciation has been forgotten. I only ever hear Nuclear pronounced that way in more southern US areas(I’m in WV so I hear it occasionally). Also, February being pronounced as Feb-you-Airy and not including the first r.
I might be alone in this, however I am an Australian and find that most of the people I know pronounce it "mischievious". That said, Aussies are not really known for speaking proper English
I read the word “conscience” growing up and genuinely believed they were referring to science of con artistry. Rather than your internal moral compass.
Thank you so much for your correct pronunciation tip. I was wondering if you have any examples in which schwa deletion occurs before ng -- whether it occurs in congratulation, congressional, or conclude.
As a non native English speaker living in Uk for the last 16 years and being a bit of a linguist I had no problems with these words and I pronounced them correctly except the word “colonel” which I thought is pronounced without r I learned something new also schedule American English and British English is shedule Thank you 😊
Yes, the English say "shhedule". Also, do the French pronouce "Colonel" as "Ko-Lo-Nel"? Without and "r" sound in it? It makes no sense that Americans pronounce it "Kernal" as in "Kernal Hogan".
Try some American dialects/accents in the Deep South. Oi. I'm in Boston, but as a kid I had cousins from Florida. When they came up to visit I couldn't understand a bloody word they said. Yet their accent wasn't even that bad, not a deep southern drawl. There are places where it is really bad. It took me like 3 years before I could understand what the heck Cheryl Cole was saying, with her Geordie accent. Then it was funny watching "X Factor UK" when that gal singer from Scotland came on ..... trying to think of her name ..... Jade Richards. When she sang, could understand her fine. But when she stopped singing and started talking, couldn't understand a bloody word she said!!!
Yea there is a bit of reaching here. It feels mildly pretentious to say Americans in the title like everyone across the US says Ekkelon or Cheyas. Never heard those words mispronounced, and even though I've heard mischievous mispronounced it's not a big deal because I know what they're saying.
@@carpelinguae9097 The Brits are strangely prone to mis-pronounce or mis-spell a whole host of words, especially if they're of French origin; "garage" with the stress on the first syllable, or "beret" which sounds like ferret instead of ber-ay come to mind. A junior "clark" (clerk) or second "leftenant" (lieutenant) would surely know better.
Phonetic alphabet symbols explained, very nice. Not my usual youtubw content but im liking it so far. You are providing a necessary service for Americans.
Not to toot my own horn whatsoever but I’m pretty shocked by some of these. I’ve always pronounced every one of them correctly. I probably have my grandparents to thank. Since I was old enough to speak, they always corrected my grammar. I wonder to this day if that’s why I became a writer
@@theesweetie23ca91 Imagine bragging about becoming a writer when you write incomplete sentences ("I probably have my grandparents to thank.") and forget to end the paragraph with a period.🤣
Thanks! I came down here looking for this comment. Since the English language originates in England, and the English pronounce it ˈshe-(ˌ)dyül , Rachel is in fact teaching the incorrect pronunciation. 😆
In British countries schedule is pronounced like "shedule", American say "skedule" In British countries, the word buoy is pronounced as "boy", the U is silent, Americans say, "booey"
A lot of words in the English language come from Latin via French and in British English we retain some of those elements in the pronunciation . Another typical example is Niche which we English pronounce like Neesh where as in the US it is usually pronounced Nitch although again I often hear many in the US confused around its pronunciation. I think a lot of words coming via French seem to cause those in the US confusion in their own tongue.
Never have said nitch. That pronunciation is anathema. My mother is from the British West Indies and pronounces all the other words as you have indicated. I suppose Americans pronounce Buoy as they do to auditorily distinguish it from boy
@@rachelsenglish As for açai, the Oxford Dictionary gives two pronunciation variants: [aˈsʌɪiː, asʌɪˈiː]. The guy in the dictionary uses the first variant.
There are more French words that are used in English than one would expect. In this video alone, here are the ones I caught: Echelon = Échelon Facade = Façade Vague = Vague Vogue = Vogue Queue = Queue Antique = Antique Boutique = Boutique Artisanal = Artisanal Cognac = Cognac Colonel = Colonel
In sixth grade, I had a schoolmate named Hannah - who was reading the word “political” and she pronounced it as “Polly-tickle”. Even though almost 50 years ago, I will never forget it. Even in 6th grade, most of us knew that was funny. She probably still remembers a sense of shame - for which I personally am sorry.
In seventh grade a girl would continuously say the word "organism" as "orgasm" in science class and I will never forget my homies and I trying our best to keep it together lmao
I had a very strict English teacher, so I learned all of this in the proper place.....school, many moons ago! It's a shame that many of today's teachers are unable to speak correct English, much less teach it.
I learned a lot of this from my grandmother, who had been an English teacher. I never came across the word açaí, until I was in my 40s, and so school, my grandmother, and other pronunciation snobs utterly failed me. Failed me!
I'm sure it did. Ha ha ha ha!! Then there are those words that you have heard SPOKEN and you have SPOKEN all of your life ... BUT ... you have NEVER written them, seen them written, nor read them. Now that is a real shocker!! You're like "is that how that word is spelled? I never knew that". At this moment I can't think of a word, an example, but I know it has happened to me. I remember one time, many years ago, I said the word "wholly" to my aging mother. As in "that child's behavior was wholly unacceptable". meaning ... entirely, completely. She didn't know what it meant, spelling, or usage, and she was surprised that I did. English and grammar was never my strong suit in school, I'm more mathematical.
Hey I just subscribed- - - *thank you* for making these videos! I learned many words by reading and mispronounciation fears (founded fears mind you) have limited my willingness to express myself to my full potential. I appreciate you. One of the reasons I'm exasperated that youtube removed the dislike button is because it kept me from learning the wrong pronunciations! There are so many bad videos out there one has to dodge! I have a question: Do you have any videos that teach how to read phonetic instruction symbols? Or a course? I truly appreciate your dedication to education. Thank you 💗 😊
I find it funny that when she was talking about acai I didn’t know what she was talking about. But as soon as she pronounced is “a-k-ai” I suddenly understood 😂
Draught was the only one I didn't know about as a non-native speaker. Another thing I know that Americans/English-natives do a lot, though it's more pronounced in text, is the "should of/should've" and it pains me everytime I see it.
@Tino D T, I agree with you 100%. That “should of” usage is so wrong and yet it’s often written. One can get away with it in spoken English, but it really stands out when written.
@@t.castro4493 I’m always happy to see non-native English speakers demonstrate their understanding of fundamental English grammar as you have. My comment is meant to be a compliment to you and all the hard-working ESOL students out there. Yes!!
@@gabicreighton7885 Thank you :) I guess I still have a lot to learn. 😁 I need to improve my listening skills, too. I have trouble with certain dialects. It was very rewarding to learn English because I can communicate with people from many different countries. Not to mention that I have a wider access to information and media. English has turned into an universal language.
Please do one on oriented. I have heard it two different ways and would love the correct pronunciation. Thanks for doing these, they are extremely helpful!! Blessings.👏🤓🕊
Hi Deborah Amy. I am a nurse so I am used to my patients being either oriented to time, place, etc or disoriented. It is like fingernails on a blackboard when I hear anyone say "orientated" & "disorientated"! I can't stand it! But I keep my mouth shut!!
Working at the banking industry, one word that I hear often is “recurring”. People often pronounce it “reoccurring”, which has a slightly different meaning.
I taught English and I know whereof she speaks! Americans not only mispronounce words, they also do not know correct grammar! It drives me crazy to hear people on the air say things such as “this was given to my husband and I “ instead of to my husband and ME!! People seem to think that a compound that includes the speaker must use I. Not true!! Another is people using the reflexive word myself as a noun such as “myself and my friend went”. Aaarrrrrggh!!
Same here. I'm Italian and speak French and Spanish. I never had problem with those words. Only, when I speak English, absolutely hate (mis)pronounce italian words like spaghetti, pizza, latte, etc saying, for example "spagheri"...arghh :)
@@rachelsenglish thank you for the reply, I appreciate it, especially on such a big channel that a lot of people ask questions in the comment section on
A little side point relating to the word realtor. There is an organization that has added an a to the word. This organization requires registration with their group and they are called "Real-a-tors"(TM), just like the mispronunciation for the word, - 'realtor'.
@@noirsaba "Calvary" is the place the Bible says Christ was crucified. "Cavelry" means mounted soldiers (today, it usually refers to heavy trucks and tanks, etc. in the military.
I agree. Rural is not the easiest to pronounce. I think about it every time I say it. After thought: Days after posting the previous sentences I was reminded of a movie title from the tv show Thirty Rock. The character Jenna attempts to tell others about the small budget movie she made the previous summer. The movie was titled The Rural Juror. The way she pronounces it has everyone confused; no one can understand what she's saying. Lol. It's perfect for this example.
@@jenni8982 I'm from a rural area of the U.S. We pronounce it both ways. Fast (one syllable) if saying an address quickly (the old style of address) and slowly (two syllables) if saying the word in other circumstances.
I used to live in London. I used the tube almost every day. And a lot of people mispronounced two places. Maybe more but these two where the most common. Amersham and Chesham.
A German speaking here. I think most of the trouble comes from the fact that the most mispronounced words were 'borrowed' from other languages, and from what I see here is that it is often overlooked where the words came from. In the cases presented here mostly French. If you'd write them in thier natural French form there is a distinct difference between "antique" and "appliqué". And I don't even speak French myself, but German also has a lot of words 'borrowed' from French, Latin, or Greek ;) I really like to quote James D. Nicoll here: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” And I really need to add that it took me about 35 years from being able to read the writing on the bottle to talk to an actual English-(British-)person how Worcestershire sauce is pronounced... And it didn't help that the most common brand of the sauce is labelled "Worcester Sauce", apart from the fact that 'sauce', even though still correct spelling is slowly replaced by "Soße" or "Sosse".
Oh, for Pete’s sake, get over yourself. (Pete is pronounced with a long “e”, just so you know) You can’t do the master race thing anymore so now you’re the master speakers. Actually, I’m only teasing but you did go on a bit! 😊
I served my Country for18 months in your country and loved it. Y'all have a beautiful place your forests are of the chain and the people were all pleasant and proud. I even met a man with a signed picture of Hitler he still had his arm band my daddy was a paratrooper. He thought I was a Englander then I spoke he replied ah Americana then said Texas no Florida. We drew pictures to communicate plus had a man who spoke some English. Love your country.
@@kimifur , Estate Agent, if you're in Canada or UK somewhere. In the USA, it's Realty Agent, Realtor, or Real Estate Agent, also unless the land owned is pretty darn large and has a mansion on it, it is not called an estate until you're talking about the last Will and Testament and the division of goods and property. A small place, on a modest Street is never called an estate until there's discussion about contents of a Will. I am aware that in most of the UK any owned or rented land is an estate, and that there are apartment buildings or projects built for the economically disadvantaged and other people "on the dole" that are called an estate or referred to as "the estates" as it is probably on a large expanse with housing on it, regardless of the size of said dwelling.
I think with “mischievous” people’s brains immediately flip to “devious” and want to pronounce it that way. Our brains read words as a whole, not individual letters, so that explanation makes sense to me at least.
I will deliberately pronounce it incorrectly randomly - it's more fun - although I was born in The House of an English Lord I failed _English Language_ the same year I won a Physics prize [not a Nobel - I was only 16] and did Advanced Math[s] after completing the standard syllabus in a few weeks - over the following 2 decades I used 15 other languages to export to 50 countries - 2020 I was working for Porsche BMW Jeep Suzuki and they terminated me (aka sacked fired dismissed) with hospitali[s or z]ed pneumonia as Prince Andrew collected his quarter million UBI his brother Charles tens of millions to subsidise his biscuit baking
Nah, she's wrong on this one. American English speakers almost always pronounce it mis-CHEE-veeus. It's silly that it's not recognized in the dictionary. Honestly, with all the other BS being incorporated into "official" dictionaries, it's silly that she picked this one. This pronunciation of mischievous is more accepted in the US than "they" being used as a pronoun for gender non-binary singular.
@@AlexeiArntzen true...A pronunciation \mis-ˈchē-vē-əs\ and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century.
@@AlexeiArntzen We Americans often mispronounce many words. As an example, recently, the crowd at a NASCAR race in the US were chanting " let's go Brandon " but we're actually mispronouncing the words so it sounded exactly like they were saying F"(# Joe Biden
I agree! I would also say that I have only rarely heard it pronounced properly in America and even then it was always a British person who said it correctly. So I did not really know that was wrong until now…I thought it was a toMAYto tomAHto sort of thing.
I'm not even entirely sure how I leaned the correct pronunciation, but it was definitely before I was actually taught it. Trachea too. It's just one of those words that I've always known how to pronounce.
In British English, schedule is pronounced with an "sh" sound at the beginning. SHED-yul. I taught English as a foreign language in Spain for a year and we had both American and British teachers, so the students learned both. :)
Whenever I hear Americans pronouncing the word "schedule" it puts my nerves on edge. The only thing worse is their pronunciation of "le Mans" ie as in the 24hr motor race held in France ie they say Lee MANS ie as man/woman
@@kimifur That's the point: there is not necessarily one precise way of pronunciation. But a Brit whose "nerves are set on end" by legitimate variation appears pompous.
An axe to the ear will do that every time! It annoys me too, but on further reading, it turns out that it’s an archaic English pronunciation, that would have been common at the time the Puritans left England. - because after the restoration of the monarchy, everyone was fed up with their killjoy ways that had seen them ban sport, the theatre, singing, dancing, Christmas and anything else that could be fun in any way.
That is cultural though. You were hearing a culture that is not your own. They can say it however they want. That is no different than some people saying ain’t. It might not be the rule but it is cultural and some people will always say it.
A draft is also a cool breeze or wind coming in through the window. Eg "It's very drafty in here--close the window. " In England we pronounce schedule as sshedule with the "Sshh" sound (like when you're telling someone to be quiet!!) ❤
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
What's the *BEST ONLINE TRAINING PROGRAM*
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🤔 www.RachelsEnglishAcademy.com 🤔
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Rachel's English do you mean, pronounce wrongly?
Rachel's English You mispronounced the word “aunt.”
how about the word "often"?
Rachel you would be much happier if you marry me .
Here are some: Plumbing, singer and solder as in soldering iron. Also the word iron itself.
Queue is just pronounced 'q' because the rest of the letters are still waiting in the line... =)
koszeggy
Cute!
Clever
😂
Brilliant
That is hilarious way to remember it.
The 3 hardest things for people to say: I'm sorry, I was wrong & worcestershire sauce.
I can say the first two but the last one still gets me. Maybe I should practise it.😄
People who speak English have no problem with Worcester Leicester, Gloucester. This is because they are places in England where we speak English not American.
@@Em-wr9ze people from Massachusetts like myself tend to pronounce words closer to those in England.
@@Em-wr9ze Those are all names of towns in Massachusetts as well, so we tend to pronounce them the right way 😉
Not hard for an Englishman!
At what point does it go from "wrong" to being a part of a dialect though? If the majority of Americans pronounce something "wrong" at that point is it not just the American dialect for that word?
Language is all about being understood! It's mispronounced if you can't be understood or clarification is needed, but it's dialect instead if it's a common way to say it among similar speakers to you. English is adopting new words all the time from dialects, so if "mischievious" isn't a word now, I think it soon will be!
You’re an Azuki simp too huh
Languages are fluid. They change over time. The word "internet" didn't exist 50 years ago. Slang and "mispronounced" words are what make accents unique.
There is a term for words that are used per region that allows them to be correct.
No. It's wrong. Language must be preserved... Any Language ... correctly preserved. There can be too many variations, but the correct ones are just that, correct. Even phrases or sentences are destroying the language. Finna...for "fixing too"! You get my point. It must be preserved in its correct form. Alterations in "texting" are short cuts, but should not be acceptable for formal language...ever.
"Booty queue" was hilarious, I never heard that before haha. My word I always messed up was "epitome", I pronounced it epee-tome
I’ve never hear “boutique” pronounced “booty queue” but, I often hear it pronounced “bow tique”….I’m always blown away when I hear it!
Actually it’s E pit oh me: epitome
I love this video, 12 years in Catholic school taught by nuns, I got 100% on this one. Those ladies loved correct English, and manners too.
Thanks Rose!
They also hated their students.
My school too!!! Thank God for the nuns of SSND
@@terrykelly6113 No, just you.
You are so right. The curriculum taught at the Catholic school I attended in Philadelphia during the 60s, was leagues away from what I had been accustomed to when I was in public school. It was in that Catholic school that I was taught how to diagram a sentence. Spelling bees were frequent, and we dreaded misspelling a word. Penmanship was emphasized and so was neatness. Elegant cursive, with the letters always leaning right, won accolades. Our notebooks were open for inspection and were given weekly notices. Incorrect grammar, sloppy usage, and heaven forbid, foul language received swift and firm corrections. To this day, I'm eternally grateful to those devoted nuns.
It requires mention that because English was composed from several languages, its rules of pronunciation are quite inconsistent. The pronunciation of an English word is most often based upon the language from which it came. This is why people in a spelling bee contest ask the language and history of an unfamiliar word before attempting to spell it. Thanks Rachel!
English isn't "composed" from several languages. It has borrowed words from many languages, but that's not the same thing. English is Germanic language.
@@reh3884 Just curious as a non expert, what is the difference between composed and borrowed? I found his answer fascinating as well as your rebuttal, but a little confused why this might be a source of contention.
English does borrow from other languages. We have many words from all over but it is a Germanic language. Not composed of other languages!
All western languages are derived from Latin. Anyone speaking Latin would tell you that just about everything you say is mispronounced...
@@ninjaclan83 English is a western Germanic language brought over by Anglo Saxons. It does feature latin but it is classified as Germanic but I guess you mean that it replaced British Latin? I suppose you're right.
In the late 80's, I became a Realtor.... and, even after ALL these years, folks still say it incorrectly, by adding a syllable, an "a" in between "real" and "tor"..... Thanks for this video, it was awesome, and very informative.... =)
You're welcome and thanks for sharing!
Literally, in half a century, I've never once heard any person mispronounce Echelon.
Trivia :
It's from Latin: Scala --> French: échelle /
échelon --> English: Scale (ladder, steps, etc)
I've heard people say both eKelon and eCHelon......but then again I'm always on the road so tend to talk to thousands of people each year.
I’ve never heard of it at all 😳
We are snobs. We don't associate with such lower echelon individuals.
I learned its pronunciation in the Marines.
Someone told me once, you should take caution when judging people that mispronounce words because this stems from reading... An educating activity. Not everyone falls into social circles with diverse vocabularies. The fact that these people are doing it on their own, should be commended. It's difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
True!
Absolutely true! My son, when in second grade, would fearlessly read aloud, sounding out unknown words according to the phonics he'd learned in school.
@@Sides3Sides That's great (and cute) for a second grader, but not for a grown adult. It's just sad in an adult.
The problem is that so many of these adults who are pronouncing things totally wrong is that they are so pigheaded and think they are correct and can't be shown the correct way. Or a lot of the attitude is "oh, so what?". And the reading defense I'm reading in the comments is really weak. That's what school and parents are for. To flesh out what is read. Are we basically saying that "not everyone falling into social circles with diverse vocabularies" is given a pass because, well, poor schools, peers and parents?
@@Booshka823 if you lived in my region, you might only know certain words from reading or from a subscription to a cinema channel. Around here - coal country, Appalachia - it has been considered rude to use any but the most basic vocabulary. So I’m not about to look down on anyone who might know a word without having heard it.
It's also based off where you're from. People have accents that slightly throw off the way they pronounce things. Another thing is that growing up, you learn from others on how to say a word because in that area that's how they pronounce it. Therefore, when people "mispronounce" a word it's not necessarily incorrect, their accent can confuse others, or how they were taught to pronounce it.
That should be "Based ON where you are from". Not only words but also expressions should be preserved.
Is there any English Teacher for natives over there? Teachers from high school or elementary school? I wonder how is it like? When you correct an essay of a 6th grade student, do you find many writing mistakes? How long does it take for a native to become 'native' in speaking and writing?? Only in English we see things like that:
>> clothes = close
>> no = know
>> would = wood
>> draught = draft
But in portuguese we also make many grammar mistakes, but the pronunciation is usually the same. 🙏🏼
Thank you Rachel!
When I hear people say, "we conversated," it absolutely kills me, it's conversed.
Hello Stevie......
@@maxwellmark986 🤮
Conversated is correct slang😋
Didn't they add "conversate" to the dictionary?
My 9 year old grandson says things like that! It's cute at his age. He says spectating too. Spectators are spectating in his thinking 😄
In British English 'schedule' is pronounced with a soft 'ch' - 'shedule' (although, with the influence of American movies, many younger people now say 'skedule').
I agree and have heard both versions.
both are correct
Don't get influenced by americans, its your own language.
I have heard Canadians using the soft ‘ch’ pronunciation also. She is referring to American English though so maybe that’s the reason.
I think the Oxford English Dictionary would state, schedule is pronounced with a soft a sshh, as in shed. Some people may think they sound more American by saying skedule.
“Draught” is the British spelling of the word. I’m surprised she even put that in here, seeing as it seems she’s teaching American English. You will only ever see “draft” in America
The only exception being imported beer :)
I'm american and even I pronounce it as Draught lmao
@@kateissues that’s because “draught” and “draft” are pronounced the same. “Draft” is the American English spelling, and “draught” is the British English spelling
I see "Draught" on beer menus at restaurants all the time.......
Not to mention the -ique words she talks about are all French based words. They are not English at all, we just use the French word because we don't have a better English one.
Why do English speaking newscasters persist in mispronouncing Foreign place names? There is No Cobble Afghanistan! Ka-bule! Many others over the years as if they are trying to change the language. Keep educating us. Thank you.
90% of these are words with French origin. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to learn English if your mother language is not of Latin origin. I work all over the world and am continually humbled by the quality of English spoken by people from far flung continents.
A lot of French words entered the English language after the Norman conquest of 1066. Norman French was the language of the ruling classes at the time.
it's not that hard actually
Some people think its a handicap to only be able to speak english. I dont think so. Its an amalgamation of different languages over different periods. As long as you do a bit of etymological research its fairly easy to recognize patterns in other languages. Save for semitic and asian languages of course.
90% load of bollocks
As a Canadian (where we retain more of the French pronunciations and spellings) some American pronunciations sound REALLY weird to the ears like first time I heard an American pronounce “foyer”. 🤔Americans pronounce the “er” ending as in better or summer.. but in French an “er” ending generally pronounced as a long a so we pronounce it ‘foi-yay’
We also have spelling like “cheque” (check as in banking)… and “centre” but pronounce center.. 🤪
One thing that drives me crazy is that so many people write "I should of" instead of the shortened for "I should have" which is spelled "should've".
Do so agree. Drives me crazy and unfortunately is increasingly common
Jeanette Place, Thank you! "Should of indeed!" One wonders about these people.
I think this is as much a grammar problem. If a person realized that "have" is often part of a part tense expression, they might remember what is correct.
Oh yes - the ubiquitous 'of' I see this a lot in blogs written by Americans, such as 'off of'
Unfortunately this is common in the UK too.
QUEUE is simply the letter Q followed by 4 silent vowels
Queue is one of my favorite unusual words. I also like syzygy. Queue and syzygy can mean the same thing: in a line.
I have never heard an American ever use the word, "queue" for a line. In fact when an English person asked me if I "were in the queue," I did not know what she meant.
Here's another way to understand the word 'queue' it is read as [k-yoo] - the letter group QUE forms the [k] sound - think of antique [an-teek] etc., and the last 2 letters -UE creates the vowel sound [yoo] - as in other words like cue [k-yoo] due [d-yoo] etc. :)
In America, queue is pronounced LINE. In Britain it is pronounced CUE.
@@SuperMagnetizer The word 'queue' cannot be 'pronounced' as 'line.' But the word 'line' is used in America instead of the word 'queue.' And the word 'queue' and 'cue' are both pronounced EXACTLY the same as [k-yoo] - because they are 'heteronyms' - words with different spelling, but the same pronunciation. :)
0:29 echelon
3:42 schedule
4:47 acai
5:49 mischievous
6:31 triathlon
7:28 facade
7:57 vague and vogue
9:10 queue
10:05 antique and other words that end in -ique
11:06 artisanal
11:41 cognac
12:08 draught, drought, draft
13:03 colonel
13:32 Worcestershire
More suggested words: feng shui and qi (thank you, China), abseil and realpolitik (thank you, Germany), rambutan (thank you, Malaysia), and all these words from French: carte blanche (not carte blanc), coup de grace (not like Mardi Gras), lieu, ombre, pied-à-terre, repartee, reveille, and trompe l'oeil, which is what French words in English do - fool the eye.
My favourite pronunciation of coupe de grace . Koopa de gra. . From the song Show Biz Kids by Steely Dan
...and Marseille
Hero!
Well I know how to pronounce all of these words but I had extensive phonics training with vocabulary taught all the way through high school. My teachers were so particular about knowing the spelling, the syllables and the phonetic sounds. We had to know the spelling, the syllables, the pronunciation and how to use it in a sentence for every word. The lack of proper training in the English language is pathetic.
My suggestion - voila! .
Binging this channel should be mandatory for every English speaker with access to the internet.
Thanks a lot!
Teacher: Johnny, please give me a sentence using the word officiate.
Johnny: My uncle got sick from a fish he ate.
😂🤣😂
😆😆😆
🤣🤣🤣
😂👍
I’ve never heard that one!!
That made me chuckle out loud.
Rachel:
just as " açaí " has the French letter "ç", (la cédille) so does the French word "façade": the spelling of façade often being changed to "facade", in English, for obvious reasons.
And, in remembering my high school study of the Spanish language, I was reminded that (in both English and Spanish) the letter "c" sounds like a "k" right before the vowels "a", "o", and "u". Examples are as follows:
Cat [kat]
Cob
Cute
If the "c" precedes "e" or "i", it has an "s" sound:
Cent
Citrus / cite... [etc.]
Where "façade" differs is in the use of the French "ç" (which guarantees that an "s" sound is made, and not a "k").
NOTE (for what it's worth):
In the 1950s, my brother and I "conjured up" our own spellings for words we heard people say, but for which we couldn't find a spelling (in our large Webster's dictionary).
>>> And, "façade" was one such word...
(So, my brother-- until he got older-- creatively spelled it "fasod".)
Precisely what I came here to say. Thanks for sparing me from typing all of that 😂
We use the Ç in Portuguese as you remember from Spanish. I think English should keep the “cedilha” (what we call the extra bit under the C) in order to make the pronunciation more clear.
Speaking of strange words. Have you ever read and then heard how the word for “a lot” is pronounced in french?! That one got me the first time!
Others enunciate words how they learned at home. “SCH” is a Deutsch or Germany for “SH”. English is a composite of mean words from different languages.
Yeah I don’t even speak German but I would assume the correct pronunciation of schedule would be with an “SH” sound at the beginning
So schez you al.
ruclips.net/video/GkPLjy3lyJk/видео.html I prank call dollar tree asked them to watch my kids 😭😭😭😭😭
Yes, English has Germanic and Romance spelling conventions, which is why it's all over the place. And then pronunciations have changed over the centuries, but spelling stays mostly static. Other languages usually change the spellings of loanwords, but English doesn't.
@@shaunmckenzie5509 that pretty much covers the things that make English very difficult to learn for people who have had little exposure to it.
It would be helpful to mention the etymology of these words, and the cultures from which they are borrowed. Not only would it help with guessing the pronunciation on reading, it helps to estimate meaning. Echelon is French. Chaos is Greek. Schlep is Yiddish. Adding background would not only make this video more interesting than just going through a list, it would help the viewer retain the knowledge, rather than simply try to memorize data.
Schedule with the "k" phoneme is not the only correct pronunciation, it is actually in a way just "accepted". The most corrected one would be as the British do with the "sch" phoneme, as it was originally a French word. Also, açaí cannot really be said to be an American word as well, it is actually tupi-guarani adapted to Portuguese, so it is easy to understand why it is mispronounced, it basically is a foreign word for native speakers.
I'm Brazilian and foreigners can never say "açaí" properly because they don't know that the "ç" has an 'S' sound and that the accent on the I changes the pronunciation :P
Portuguese is a difficult language for everyone, but especially English speakers...
The name 'João' is confusing even to those who know another Romance language.
I don’t know if I’d say “originally a French word,” the origin of our pronunciation of it, sure, but I would’ve went with late Latin as an origin
@@t.castro4493 I had a similar problem with ß is German, turns out its just an S sound with just a little longer stress to it.
I've heard people pronounce "schedule" as "shkedule"
@@Amy_Dunn Yup, back when I was a child I thought it was a "B".
The "Ä" still confuses me, though.
Another pet peeve: someone saying “I pacifically (instead of specifically) told you….
This one drives me nuts!
😡😡😡😡😡
Oh wow. I just commented the same thing. Then I scrolled down. I always want to slap people when they say that.
I always respond with Atlantically.
@@rm5282 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😂
How about “ flustrated ” instead of frustrated
As time passes, language, words and pronunciations change amongst all cultures. What one deems appropriate, inappropriate or wrong today, may likely be accepted, omitted or changed in the future.
Ebonics
@Fernando Blanco
Aren't you glad you spell "amongst" the exact same way William Shakespeare and King James, the First, did: over 400 years ago?
Doesn’t really happen with Spanish
What your describing would be slang but no matter how much time passes words are still supposed to be said correctly. When your saying a word completely wrong no matter where you are or if the person your speaking to cares or not, if you say the word wrong it’s still wrong.
@@catrivera7463
Well... I see your point, but that's debatable:
For example, the Mexican Spanish letter "i griega" (y) and the "elle" [EH-yay] both have exactly the same sound.
>>> Some individuals who really never learned to spell well use the "y" instead of "ll" in words/word phrases like these:
"las yamas (llamas)"
>>> Las 'yamas' nos quemaron.
>> (The flames burned us.)
"me yamo (llamo)...
>>> Me 'yamo' Juan.
>> (My name is John.)
THE PROBLEM, however, isn't in Mexico: they learn impeccable Spanish in school.
>>> It is really problematic in other (unnamed) places, because of slang and a thing called laziness: it is these two factors, I believe, that account for the changes in pronunciation that I have heard, among Spanish speakers in various (unnamed) places, over the last 50 years...
As a native speaker of English I enjoy watching this because I am learning French right now and it is nice to know I’m a native speaker of a very hard language to learn
😅give me a break while I eat my salmon. Oops! I mean "samen." I am 82 years old and only a few teeth left. So the way I pronounce words now is a new form of English. 😄Keep up the good work!
Yessssss! Drives me nuts!
🤣🤣🤣
English language is pronounced with no reason. Watch the comedian Galleger talk about it. Very funny!
YOUR 82?! YOU are freaking immortal !!
Yeah, salmon is a weird one! Good call!
We were taught phonetics back in the 60s. I've read thousands of books. If I didn't know what a word meant through context or if I wasn't sure of its pronunciation, I was taught to use the dictionary.
And, I still do that
That just makes too much sense
That only helps if you have been taught the phonetic alphabet. I have not, and I was educated in the 1960s and 1970s. I have little or no idea of what each of the symbols mean or what sound they designate. Unless I hear the word spoken, I don’t know the pronunciation.
Vikki Taylor Yes! they taught us the diacritical markings (for long and short vowels , etc.), dipthongs, the schwa sound and all that stuff. It was foolproof! I have noticed online they now either use completely different markings, call them them different names or lump everything into this "universal" code called IPA which makes no sense to me at all. Why fix something that is not broken? We taught our children how to read phonetically since they do not teach it that way anymore. SMH. It's a "guess and go" method now. Look at the whole word and try to guess what it is by the context of a sentence. So dumb.
@cattycorner...There are so many things they no longer teach in school. It seems the goal is longer learning but graduation. I learned how to count without a calculator (money, too!), how to write cursive, how to type, word origins (which helps with spelling and pronunciation!), typing with all my digits (not just my thumbs!), grammer, math, and many other things I use daily...based on current curricula I think the jobs of our educators have become increasingly difficult and our children are suffering because of it. Morality and accountability are two topics that deserve their own forum! Thank you for listening!
I'm originally from Italy and I came here when I was 2. I astonishingly say all these words correctly. Thank you to my grammar school teachers.
I did not have 25 percent of my hearing all the way up to the 2nd grade. I really could have used someone to teach me. I'm still learning.
It happens. You put pride on speaking and writing grammatically correct unlike most Americans.
same
Hai fatto molto bene, Aldo 🇺🇸 🇮🇹
I’m from America originally, I say everything correctly just like it was in the 1960’s. Now I say everything wrong decades later. I didn’t change the world did. Even the new elementary teachers say I am no longer saying it the way it is taught now.
"The letters of this word make no sense for the way it's pronunced!". That is true for all of english, from a non-native speaker's point of view
I appreciate your challenge & struggle; I only fared well because of growing up in an American English household where my Granny was an English teacher! To all of those who undertake learning English the world around, I tip my hat and applaud your efforts!
My trigger word: "expresso" when saying "espresso". Gets me everytime. That's an eye twitch inducer right there.
What about when people press the excape key?
When I was young I used to say EXpecially instead of especially 😆
I hate it, and MOST PEOPLE DO THIS 😳 SUPPOSEBLY INSTEAD OF SUPPOSEDLY !! DRIVES ME BONKERS!!
My trigger word is "seen". "I seen so and so"... It's "saw" you plebs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love saying expresso to people who get triggered for not saying espresso! Makes for a little spice!
I know people who say, “supposably” rather than, “supposedly.”
Ugh. Me too and it is physically painful 😖.
My supervisor asked me to write her retirement letter, because she wanted it “gramorically correct”. Her favorite expressions were “it’s a tapestry of justice, and I could care less”. SMH
@@shelbymanners6729 - Or people that use "was" instead of "were". Or, instead of pronouncing the TH sound at the ends of certain words, they use an F.
Earf instead of earth, Teef instead of teeth, birf instead of birth etc.
@@toshikotanaka3249 I think you're just describing 5 year olds
Yes, so annoyitating!!😃
To be fair, a lot of these are borrowed from other languages, mostly French/Latin
Athlos is greek and schlep is yiddish. So many rules for all the languages.
IKR, she even used the French spelling for açaí lol.
Darling, english words come from even ancient words hahaha
Americans, please learn the derivation of the words from their original language
@@nixter8739 Schlep ist yiddish. And that, in turn, comes from the German word schleppen, which means laboriously pulling something heavy.
Wow outstanding video. All words are equally crucial but after this video, I am able to pronounce correctly are; schedule, queue, boutique, vague, vogue etc. I am thankful to you Mrs Rachel.
That's great Tika! Keep it up!
Is this video popping up in everyone's feed or something?
Anyway, when people say "expresso" when ordering coffee really grinds my gears for some reason.
You mean grinds your beans?
“Acrossed” instead of “across”
“Ambidextrious” instead of “ambidextrous”
“Lacksadaisical” instead of “lackadaisical”
Some more mispronunciations with the potential to ruin my mood for the day.
It would me too, but have never heard it said that way.
@@uncletasty9721 Ah ha Alex, I myself have been laxadaisical in my pronunciation of lackadaisical. Thank you for pointing it out. 👍
@@livableincome You clearly have been listening in a lackadaisical manner.
Echelon comes from the French échelon, a word whose literal meaning is “rung of a ladder.” Initially it was confined to military use, to refer to a step-like formation of troops. It is not English
I would wager half of English isn't English
My thoughts EXACTLY.
Thank you.
A lot of the words in this video come from French (antique, boutique, facade, echelon) - Americans like me can't say anything right :P
@@tonis204 60% of English comes from French they say ;)
I was born in the US, raised in the UK & I have never heard/seen this word before. I had to look up it’s meaning. Thought it sounded French though so thanks for this clarification!
Actually, I've never heard anyone mispronounce "echelon" until this video, so I think most Americans -- certainly all that I know -- have no problem with the word "echelon."
Didn’t make it to the second word of the video. Never, in over fifty years, have I heard anyone say echelon wrong. Yet one person on an obscure video she watched, used one word wrong, and it’s a word all Americans use wrong.
Right!? I know plenty of commonly mispronounced words, but I have never, ever heard anyone mispronounce "echelon" until today.
This woman would have a field day with Cardy b or whatever her name is
Agreed. Never heard someone mispronounce it either.
Most non-homosexuals just say ladder rung anyway
This and other of your videos demonstrate just how surprisingly much of modern English actually comes from French.
In a RUclips video i saw recently, it was said that MORE of modern English comes from older, "country" French than even from earlier forms of English.
There are obvious examples like "cognac", but even words like " guard", "study", and "restaurant" come from French.
They even said there is more "country" French in modern English than there is in modern "Parisian" French itself.
One thing is for sure: English is WAY more French than most people realize.
Fun channel!
English is such a language of words borrowed from other languages, it's helpful to know the country of origin, because borrowed words often retain their original pronunciation. For example, "echelon" is from the French, where "ech..." is usually pronounced 'esh...', and "chaos" is from the Greek, where any "ch" sounds like a hard 'k', like the Greek letter "chi" ("Χ" in the Greek alphabet), pronounced 'kee'. English can be challenging due to the numerous borrowed words, but also fun, like traveling the world! Bon voyage!!
👍🏻
@@rebeccarozen722 Quay is pronounced Key
English and other languages of europe are latin origin languages. So there are many similar words among them. Languages are formed by communication and movement of people, cultures...so english borrows from others and others borrow from english ofcourse. "Good Morning" and "Guten Morgen" in German sound similar...so we can't say which language borrows from which language cause we are not the first people who use it.
Worrying about pronunciation is such a blue sky problem. So you say a word wrong? Big deal. I prefer to hide my intelligence anyways. If someone is going to think i'm not very smart that is great. It's always better to have low expectations and to take your enemies by surprise.
German language class in 8th grade, I thought wow. Makes much more sense than English in America.
I'm Brazilian and "açaí" is a word that exists in Portuguese, but as said before, has Tupi Guarani origin like a lot of words we use here. Remember that the 'Ç' letter (C-cedilla) has an 'S' sound, and that the "Í" changes the pronunciation. So it's like ah-sah-EE as she said.
"Tapioca" is also mispronounced sometimes.
One of my college professors, asked me during class if I read a lot. When I asked why, he said it was because I kept mispronouncing words due to being more familiar with reading them versus hearing them. Apparently his son was the same way. It can be an interesting thing to listen for.
I mispronounce words I learned through reading, too. I was surprised to hear the woman in the video say this, because I never heard anyone say that before though I figured I hadn't heard them spoken. My friend can pronounce almost anything right but he's a terrible speller! Either he doesn't read as much or it's just a different skill set (I can Spell almost anything). I figure he must have had intellectual parents who used these words; my parents were more earthy. But maybe his ear is better while I'm more observant visually. Or maybe I just don't question my assumptions enough! (Some words I've learned correctly from hearing him: papyrus; scythe; unwieldy..)
@@cockeyedoptimista he knows the spoken language and you know the orthography!
I like talking a lil messed up casually. It makes people listen when I switch gears and speak very clearly. Different strokes for different folks and situations. It imparts nuance that can be an important component of the info conveyed.
In British English, as you probably know, "schedule" is pronounced with a ssh sound, although the American version is widely used also
Exactly.
But do you pronounce school as shool?
@@anthonyhanners8715 No, but there's plenty of words in the English language that eschew logic when it comes to pronunciation.
@@anthonyhanners8715 British English is the correct English.
@@Catsface99 that's like saying only people from Spain speak Spanish correctly. But all the other dialects (Puerto Rican, Cuban, Colombian, etc) are correct in their dialects and the way they evolved, just as American English is correct because that's how it has evolved from British English.
There's multiple English dialects, so naturally many words are going to be said differently. English is Germanic, with Greek and Latin roots and is constantly changing with each generation.
The whole muddle with English really starts in 1066, when Anglo-Norman began to be incorporated into Old English. It wasn't purely Germanic after that. That's why Middle English is actually pretty intelligible to Modern English speakers, whereas Old English might as well be a foreign language. Compare The Canterbury Tales' "Whan that Apryll with his shoures soote" to Beowulf's "Hwaet! We gardena in geerdagum..."
you can't really call them dialects, different accents or different "habits" for saying certain words a certain way or certain phrases. Just now I've been watching British Detective Series "Vera" again. Boy do they come up with some whoppers! I have no idea what they just said or what it means or what they are talking about. But that is mostly from the Newcastle locals with their Geordie accents. The actress playing "Vera" is from Kent. I'm like "what is that word? What does that mean?" Wow!!
@@christopherhelton6999 Yup! That Damn William again!! Muddling things up!! I have a copy of the original written Magna Carta (1215 A.D.) hanging on my wall, with a typed up Modern English translation hanging up next to it. Now, maybe, I can make out a few words from the original. Man is it a nightmare.
@@aspenrebel you absolutely can call them dialects. Dialects encompass both differences in pronunciation as well as differences in vocabulary. A good way to understand this is that a sociolect is itself a dialect, specifically a dialect of a particular social class, usually confined to a particular area. A great example of a sociolect that is very commonly seen in media would be valleyspeak, which outright popularized the use of "like" as a discourse marker in American English.
@@G0LD3NR0D fir sure ah! Narly, totally rad.
In French "une échelle" is a ladder and "un échelon" is one step of a ladder so it visually evoke a lower/upper repartition within a group.
Thank you, you've increased my French vocab.
Nice, thanks, wouldn’t have known that otherwise. Thankfully, I’ve never had the misfortune of mispronouncing most words, even those I hardly use. I just don’t see how anyone could make simple mistakes like that.
This video is excellent, but it drove me nuts that you didn't touch on the etymology, which is the entire reason English is so damn complex and inconsistent. Knowing the origins of the word absolutely helps pronounce it. Is it greek, germanic, latinate, french?
I think this is the real reason that many Americans don't know how to pronounce words or names well. We're generally very ignorant of other languages and cultures, despite being a society comprised of all the cultures of the world.
I have a high respect for foreign people that come here and learn the language.
WELL understood! Good point.
Its weird all right. Like parking on a driveway but driving on a parkway. Or knight, knife and knave.
Thank you! Although when I got there I already knew the language, it was hard to use it every day for everything. But I love English.
Tough for sure but fun and so gratifying when you become fluent. Now, if my French could be just as good as my English, I would be in heaven.
Yes! Especially if you come from any other English speaking country like England or Australia.
My wife said there are no words in the English language that use every vowel and in the correct alphabetical order. But I think she was speaking facetiously.
👀
Nice one!!
🤣👍
*Groan*
Smart aleck
Draught...is actually draft? My mind is blown 💣
Where's the f?
In Harry Potter they kept saying "draft" for draught of living death. I was confused but this video explains it.
That was the only one that really got me. Have always been pronouncing it like Drawght kind of. Thought it was a measurement of any liquid. Cool
Any -augh or -ough word is going to be random. Gh used to be pronounced like a hard German CH. It's now changed to an F sound, or is even silent.
💀
"mel-Lock-a-ny"
Someone I went to school with thought it was the pronunciation of "melancholy," and that when people said "melancholy," they were using a different word.
As a retired ESL instructor myself, with a specialization in accent reduction, I recommend that you also let people know the origins of these words. For example, acai, vogue, and facade have French etymologies. This may help students understand why they are pronounced the way they are.
As soon as I heard acai mispronounced I was done
Not every word that has a “ç” comes from French. Açaí is native to South America and uses the Portuguese phonetics for a Tupi word. Tupi is one of the hundreds of languages spoken by tribal people from the Amazon. So while the “ç” comes from Portuguese (the language spoken in Brazil), the word is very much _not_ European, especially not French.
@@gioctw ok… but as you said, it was spelled phonetically in portuguese, which like french, uses cedillas. so, if people knew what a cedilla was and how to pronounce them, then maybe they’d have an easier time pronouncing the words that contain them.
@@carrielikethemovie13 For sure!
I was thinking the same thing, wondering why she didn't make a point of it.
My pet peeve is hearing someone say “supposably” when it’s actually “supposedly”. Nails on a chalkboard! 😕
Maybe they have speech problems or different dialect because of region
@@PrincessofKeys Not an excuse. 😂
Depends, because supposably IS a word, it is just used out of context most of the time. It means "able to be supposed". So, if I know you like chocolate, then supposably you will like a Hershey bar. Supposedly means "according to what is generally assumed or believed". As in "Supposedly she is going to pay me back next week".
For me it’s “in the meanwhile.” Imo it should be “meanwhile” or “in the meantime” and “in the meanwhile” sets my teeth on edge.
@@JoeMac1983 how is having a communication disorder an excuse...?
I’m Brazilian and your “açaí” pronunciation was perfect 👌
Thank you Oscar!
Her açai's pronounciation is far much better than some Brás here in Brasil.
spelling of açai is uninformative it should be açaii or with double dot over the i as in naive
@@idw9159 Not really Ian. The double dot over the I, as in naive, is the French spelling for the diphthong a-i. In Portuguese, that same sound is represented by the symbol over the í. Hence, açaí.
@Gilberto Cunha I know all that, thank you. That's not what I was talking about with my brother Ian Williams.
How about segue - I've always said "seg-way" so I was surprised when I heard a friend say "see-goo". I knew that pronunciation was important to her, so we looked it up. (And I knew that she also learned words by reading.) Well, we found that it's correctly said seg-way. Has anyone else had a problem with this one?
I've never heard anyone say it that way but I can understand how someone might think that's how it's pronounced. As you said, just another example of learning words by reading :)
Not a speaking issue but a writing one: the 90% use of loose when they mean lose.
Very true. And some can't distinguish between they're, there or their.
Like a lot of people spell the line splitting two countries apart as "boarder" instead of "border".
Aaaack! The whole "loose" and "lose" thing. Pet peeve of mine. Lol
@@firefly19690 that drives me nuts.
People who spell does as dose
Two of my pet peeves: mischievous as “mischievious” and nuclear as “nuculur”
Mischievous is such a word that the proper pronunciation has been forgotten. I only ever hear Nuclear pronounced that way in more southern US areas(I’m in WV so I hear it occasionally). Also, February being pronounced as Feb-you-Airy and not including the first r.
Anyone remember David Letterman taking the mick out of George W Bush over "nucular"? It was hilarious.
I might be alone in this, however I am an Australian and find that most of the people I know pronounce it "mischievious".
That said, Aussies are not really known for speaking proper English
To me people are "mischievous" but things are "mischievous".
Ill let you figure It out lol 😎
I read the word “conscience” growing up and genuinely believed they were referring to science of con artistry. Rather than your internal moral compass.
I cannot ever seem to spell “conscience” or "couscous" correctly!?
I split it up the word conscience. I take the first syllable c o n and then I spell science made it easier for me growing up.
I still think it is.
You got my ribs cracking!!!
@@discmotoslots Couscous, so good they named it twice.
Thank you so much for your correct pronunciation tip. I was wondering if you have any examples in which schwa deletion occurs before ng -- whether it occurs in congratulation, congressional, or conclude.
Yes, it's possible to reduce the first syllable in those words. If you say "con" quickly enough, you may not really hear a schwa before the NG.
@@rachelsenglish Thank you so much!
As a non native English speaker living in Uk for the last 16 years and being a bit of a linguist I had no problems with these words and I pronounced them correctly except the word “colonel” which I thought is pronounced without r
I learned something new also schedule American English and British English is shedule
Thank you 😊
Thank you Seminio, my american parents always said Shedule. Or rather Shed jule. Guess it was from English ancestry. Helpful to know.
I think R is pronounced in colonel only in American English. Britts would say conel?
Yes, the English say "shhedule". Also, do the French pronouce "Colonel" as "Ko-Lo-Nel"? Without and "r" sound in it? It makes no sense that Americans pronounce it "Kernal" as in "Kernal Hogan".
Try some American dialects/accents in the Deep South. Oi. I'm in Boston, but as a kid I had cousins from Florida. When they came up to visit I couldn't understand a bloody word they said. Yet their accent wasn't even that bad, not a deep southern drawl. There are places where it is really bad. It took me like 3 years before I could understand what the heck Cheryl Cole was saying, with her Geordie accent. Then it was funny watching "X Factor UK" when that gal singer from Scotland came on ..... trying to think of her name ..... Jade Richards. When she sang, could understand her fine. But when she stopped singing and started talking, couldn't understand a bloody word she said!!!
I'm Irish and I always thought "sk-edule" was British and "sh-edule" was American.
i didn't know any of these mistakes were common, I've literally never heard any of these words pronounced wrong until this video
I heard echelon, the first one, a few times. But it's not usually used outside of formal speaking.
maybe people don't say mischievous around you but that word is mispronounced more often than not, even on tv and movies
I'm in the same boat never heard these wrong. Even mischievous is pronounced correctly
Yea there is a bit of reaching here. It feels mildly pretentious to say Americans in the title like everyone across the US says Ekkelon or Cheyas. Never heard those words mispronounced, and even though I've heard mischievous mispronounced it's not a big deal because I know what they're saying.
Have you heard prescence for granite instead of granted? Super common
In England, and probably the rest of the UK, they pronounce "schedule" with an "sh" sound.
Yes, that is how I learned It.
That was thanks to Queen Victoria. The "sch" is a hard "SK" sound like in "school." But she mispronounced it and it stuck.
@@carpelinguae9097 The Brits are strangely prone to mis-pronounce or mis-spell a whole host of words, especially if they're of French origin; "garage" with the stress on the first syllable, or "beret" which sounds like ferret instead of ber-ay come to mind. A junior "clark" (clerk) or second "leftenant" (lieutenant) would surely know better.
Word origin matters. Latin in this case.
Also, the pronunciation of "to schlep" with a _sh_ sound probably comes from its German origin "schleppen" rather than the consonant.
Phonetic alphabet symbols explained, very nice. Not my usual youtubw content but im liking it so far. You are providing a necessary service for Americans.
Thanks for watching Stefan!
Not to toot my own horn whatsoever but I’m pretty shocked by some of these. I’ve always pronounced every one of them correctly. I probably have my grandparents to thank. Since I was old enough to speak, they always corrected my grammar. I wonder to this day if that’s why I became a writer
Same here
Imagine bragging about your ability to pronounce “mischievous” correctly.
@@LlamaOccident imagine bragging about becoming a writer when you don’t understand the difference between grammar and pronunciation 😂
@@theesweetie23ca91 Imagine bragging about becoming a writer when you write incomplete sentences ("I probably have my grandparents to thank.") and forget to end the paragraph with a period.🤣
I prefer someone to correct me. In fact I have a coffee cup which reads "I am silently correcting your grammar".
The word schedule is also tricky, seeing as the British pronounce it differently. Though not as the student suggest 😅
I usually hear Brittish/Australians pronounce it shed-ual, with a minor emphasis on the s.
Thanks! I came down here looking for this comment. Since the English language originates in England, and the English pronounce it ˈshe-(ˌ)dyül , Rachel is in fact teaching the incorrect pronunciation. 😆
I hate when people say Shed-ule like bruh c'mon that's not it
@@kaproskarleto5136 That's cuz you speak 'Mericun, bruh
I always thought you would shed ual and event into your skedge ual
Pretty sure there are a lot of us brits using it like this.
In British countries schedule is pronounced like "shedule", American say "skedule"
In British countries, the word buoy is pronounced as "boy", the U is silent, Americans say, "booey"
A lot of words in the English language come from Latin via French and in British English we retain some of those elements in the pronunciation . Another typical example is Niche which we English pronounce like Neesh where as in the US it is usually pronounced Nitch although again I often hear many in the US confused around its pronunciation. I think a lot of words coming via French seem to cause those in the US confusion in their own tongue.
I’m from N.Ire and we say ‘skedule’
Never have said nitch. That pronunciation is anathema. My mother is from the British West Indies and pronounces all the other words as you have indicated. I suppose Americans pronounce Buoy as they do to auditorily distinguish it from boy
@Jon M everyone I know (apart from a select few) pronounces it skedule, but everyone I know is wrong.
Where did you learn how to pronounce schedule? At school? Or at shool?
I like this teacher,props to you Rachel ,you have helped me a lot especially in pronunciation
You're very welcome Francis!
Rachel, your pronunciation of " açaí " was so natural that I thought for a moment you were a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker. I love your channel!
Thanks José!
He definitely said acai
I agree ... I was like ... what? Is she Brazilian?
@@rachelsenglish As for açai, the Oxford Dictionary gives two pronunciation variants: [aˈsʌɪiː, asʌɪˈiː]. The guy in the dictionary uses the first variant.
That reminds me of Japanese, where "aka i" means "beautiful" and "akai" means "scary."
There are more French words that are used in English than one would expect. In this video alone, here are the ones I caught:
Echelon = Échelon
Facade = Façade
Vague = Vague
Vogue = Vogue
Queue = Queue
Antique = Antique
Boutique = Boutique
Artisanal = Artisanal
Cognac = Cognac
Colonel = Colonel
YES. Almost all the words she chose as examples were lifted lock stock and accent from the French. And they DO follow the rules - the FRENCH rules.
Is that Vague as in "Nouvelle Vague". Or vague as in "The Hague"? Obviously not to be confused with "Den Haag".
But never, ever "Coenyac". Always "Cognac".
53% of English words come directly from the French language
@@ggggerryggg8170 wait, 53% 🧐 😳
In sixth grade, I had a schoolmate named Hannah - who was reading the word “political” and she pronounced it as “Polly-tickle”. Even though almost 50 years ago, I will never forget it. Even in 6th grade, most of us knew that was funny. She probably still remembers a sense of shame - for which I personally am sorry.
I used to say "viginer" instead of vinegar lol
MEEEEEEEE I DO THISSSS XD
My wife pronounces the word rotisserie, as in the chicken, “roast-ti-aire.” The first time she told me to pick one up, I was like “the what chicken?!”
In seventh grade a girl would continuously say the word "organism" as "orgasm" in science class and I will never forget my homies and I trying our best to keep it together lmao
I said polytitial one time and got made fun of lol
The mischievous mispronunciation drives me crazy. Thank you for addressing it.
"Chaos"
People who have watched sonic:*i have no such weaknesses*
Until you play the games and go to the Chao garden. Then it's pronounced as if you're saying goodbye in italian.
^^this
As a kid, I never knew the word “chaos” so I pronounced it as ( ch-Aw-ois-)
I was such a smart kid...
@Hecker-chan uh...
I had a very strict English teacher, so I learned all of this in the proper place.....school, many moons ago! It's a shame that many of today's teachers are unable to speak correct English, much less teach it.
Proper place?
@@Elvis-guy1973 Yes, school is for learning
@@gigimoore3738 To say you learned all of this in the proper place is bad grammar.
I learned a lot of this from my grandmother, who had been an English teacher. I never came across the word açaí, until I was in my 40s, and so school, my grandmother, and other pronunciation snobs utterly failed me. Failed me!
@@Elvis-guy1973 Why is it bad grammer?
The first time I saw “outlier” I thought it was French and pronounced it Ute-Lee-ay. Hilarity ensued.
I'm sure it did. Ha ha ha ha!! Then there are those words that you have heard SPOKEN and you have SPOKEN all of your life ... BUT ... you have NEVER written them, seen them written, nor read them. Now that is a real shocker!! You're like "is that how that word is spelled? I never knew that". At this moment I can't think of a word, an example, but I know it has happened to me. I remember one time, many years ago, I said the word "wholly" to my aging mother. As in "that child's behavior was wholly unacceptable". meaning ... entirely, completely. She didn't know what it meant, spelling, or usage, and she was surprised that I did. English and grammar was never my strong suit in school, I'm more mathematical.
I bet that one time is now an outlier from all the other times you have pronounced it correctly. :)
Hey I just subscribed- - - *thank you* for making these videos! I learned many words by reading and mispronounciation fears (founded fears mind you) have limited my willingness to express myself to my full potential. I appreciate you. One of the reasons I'm exasperated that youtube removed the dislike button is because it kept me from learning the wrong pronunciations! There are so many bad videos out there one has to dodge!
I have a question: Do you have any videos that teach how to read phonetic instruction symbols? Or a course? I truly appreciate your dedication to education. Thank you 💗 😊
You're very welcome! Here's a playlist: ruclips.net/p/PL76E3034895AF6FF4
I don't ever mispronounce "echelon". Heck, I never use it, forgot it even existed.
😂😂😂
Exactly. I learned the word from reading and still pronounce it properly.
It’s a French word. It would be more honourable an attitude to openly admit this.
I learned it from Splinter Cell. Because you’re part of 3rd Echelon.
I'm Japanese but I knew the word and its pronunciation thanks to Travis Scott's song 😅
I find it funny that when she was talking about acai I didn’t know what she was talking about. But as soon as she pronounced is “a-k-ai” I suddenly understood 😂
Muso?
Def felt like a fool ordering an “ akai” bowl in Hawaii last month lol
My English is pretty good but I went with a K too
They used to make good tape decks.
@@carltonlambert7608 still make samplers
Draught was the only one I didn't know about as a non-native speaker. Another thing I know that Americans/English-natives do a lot, though it's more pronounced in text, is the "should of/should've" and it pains me everytime I see it.
Same with they're/their/there, you're/your, etc.
C'mon, it's not that hard to learn English grammar... we did it as ESL speakers...
When I saw the Natives in Merry Olde England drinking some Amber Fluid I believe I overheard them referring to it as a "Draught".
@Tino D T, I agree with you 100%. That “should of” usage is so wrong and yet it’s often written. One can get away with it in spoken English, but it really stands out when written.
@@t.castro4493 I’m always happy to see non-native English speakers demonstrate their understanding of fundamental English grammar as you have. My comment is meant to be a compliment to you and all the hard-working ESOL students out there. Yes!!
@@gabicreighton7885 Thank you :)
I guess I still have a lot to learn. 😁
I need to improve my listening skills, too. I have trouble with certain dialects.
It was very rewarding to learn English because I can communicate with people from many different countries. Not to mention that I have a wider access to information and media. English has turned into an universal language.
Please do one on oriented. I have heard it two different ways and would love the correct pronunciation. Thanks for doing these, they are extremely helpful!! Blessings.👏🤓🕊
Thanks for the suggestion Deborah!
Hi Deborah Amy. I am a nurse so I am used to my patients being either oriented to time, place, etc or disoriented. It is like fingernails on a blackboard when I hear anyone say "orientated" & "disorientated"! I can't stand it! But I keep my mouth shut!!
Working at the banking industry, one word that I hear often is “recurring”. People often pronounce it “reoccurring”, which has a slightly different meaning.
20 spot 7
Most insane thing ever. They say spot instead of dot or point.
😳I have never considered that one before. 🤔
There is no such word as “reoccurring”.
@@Woodman-Spare-that-tree That is incorrect.
Thank you sir...you just helped me out lol..now I'm self conscious, which is good actually
I wish my English teachers would have been as clear and concise as you are. Thank you for posting.
I taught English and I know whereof she speaks! Americans not only mispronounce words, they also do not know correct grammar! It drives me crazy to hear people on the air say things such as “this was given to my husband and I “ instead of to my husband and ME!! People seem to think that a compound that includes the speaker must use I. Not true!! Another is people using the reflexive word myself as a noun such as “myself and my friend went”. Aaarrrrrggh!!
They were. You weren't paying attention.
@@michaelshammas72 really? How do you know that?
As a non native speaker I feel somewhat special for knowing how all these words are pronounced 😅
My tip: listen to audiobooks
Thanks for sharing Aizu!
Same because they come from french I guess like echelon, vague, Vogue, queue, facade, chaos...
Same here. I'm Italian and speak French and Spanish. I never had problem with those words. Only, when I speak English, absolutely hate (mis)pronounce italian words like spaghetti, pizza, latte, etc saying, for example "spagheri"...arghh :)
Aizu brilliant tip!
I have heard a number of words mispronounced in audio books.
Kind of confused on this one, some say niche is pronounced nitch, while others claim it's pronounced like nishe, which one is correct?
I believe both are accepted pronunciation - so use the one you like best! :)
@@rachelsenglish thank you for the reply, I appreciate it, especially on such a big channel that a lot of people ask questions in the comment section on
Some real estate agents mispronounce the word realtor. Adding an "a", pronouncing it "realator".
A lot of people who aren't realtors say it that way, too, including me, haha.
A little side point relating to the word realtor. There is an organization that has added an a to the word. This organization requires registration with their group and they are called "Real-a-tors"(TM), just like the mispronunciation for the word, - 'realtor'.
This one really bothers me. And yes, local realtors will mispronounce it in their own radio ads. Smh!
"Masonary" for "masonry" is a similar error.
@@geoculus5606 I feel like 95 percent of the English speaking world does.
Cavalry is often mispronounced 'Calvary' - two very different entities!
So true. I served in the First Cavalry Division of the army, I take no shame in correcting people when they mess it up.
Also amblalance and nucular.
Calvary is biblical?
@@noirsaba "Calvary" is the place the Bible says Christ was crucified. "Cavelry" means mounted soldiers (today, it usually refers to heavy trucks and tanks, etc. in the military.
@@evanpenny348 In the USA we even hear "bambalance!" Always a cause for hysterical laughter.😂
“Rural” has always taken more of my concentration than it should.
I agree. Rural is not the easiest to pronounce. I think about it every time I say it. After thought: Days after posting the previous sentences I was reminded of a movie title from the tv show Thirty Rock. The character Jenna attempts to tell others about the small budget movie she made the previous summer. The movie was titled The Rural Juror. The way she pronounces it has everyone confused; no one can understand what she's saying. Lol. It's perfect for this example.
I hate this word. I stumble on it regularly
If you're from a rural area in the US, you don't have issue with it as people here pronounce it as a one syllable word "rul" that is drawn out.
@@jenni8982 I'm from a rural area of the U.S. We pronounce it both ways. Fast (one syllable) if saying an address quickly (the old style of address) and slowly (two syllables) if saying the word in other circumstances.
@@lj.3589 nobody speaks quickly where I'm from.
I used to live in London. I used the tube almost every day. And a lot of people mispronounced two places. Maybe more but these two where the most common. Amersham and Chesham.
Interesting lesson. Nice to realize that I've been saying most of these words correctly.
If you know what someone is talking about? That’s correct enough
A German speaking here. I think most of the trouble comes from the fact that the most mispronounced words were 'borrowed' from other languages, and from what I see here is that it is often overlooked where the words came from. In the cases presented here mostly French. If you'd write them in thier natural French form there is a distinct difference between "antique" and "appliqué". And I don't even speak French myself, but German also has a lot of words 'borrowed' from French, Latin, or Greek ;)
I really like to quote James D. Nicoll here: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
And I really need to add that it took me about 35 years from being able to read the writing on the bottle to talk to an actual English-(British-)person how Worcestershire sauce is pronounced... And it didn't help that the most common brand of the sauce is labelled "Worcester Sauce", apart from the fact that 'sauce', even though still correct spelling is slowly replaced by "Soße" or "Sosse".
Oh, for Pete’s sake, get over yourself. (Pete is pronounced with a long “e”, just so you know) You can’t do the master race thing anymore so now you’re the master speakers. Actually, I’m only teasing but you did go on a bit! 😊
SOßE PLZ
I served my Country for18 months in your country and loved it. Y'all have a beautiful place your forests are of the chain and the people were all pleasant and proud. I even met a man with a signed picture of Hitler he still had his arm band my daddy was a paratrooper. He thought I was a Englander then I spoke he replied ah Americana then said Texas no Florida. We drew pictures to communicate plus had a man who spoke some English. Love your country.
Great comment.
@@aprillancour7080 He is not wrong. Plus there is the fact of regional pronunciation/dialect.
Another word I can think of is "Realtor". A lot of people pronounce it with an extra 'a'. They say real-a-tor instead of real-tor.
When the correct way of saying it is "Estate agent" ;)
Yikes, that one makes my spinal cord freak out!
@@kimifur , Estate Agent, if you're in Canada or UK somewhere. In the USA, it's Realty Agent, Realtor, or Real Estate Agent, also unless the land owned is pretty darn large and has a mansion on it, it is not called an estate until you're talking about the last Will and Testament and the division of goods and property. A small place, on a modest Street is never called an estate until there's discussion about contents of a Will.
I am aware that in most of the UK any owned or rented land is an estate, and that there are apartment buildings or projects built for the economically disadvantaged and other people "on the dole" that are called an estate or referred to as "the estates" as it is probably on a large expanse with housing on it, regardless of the size of said dwelling.
I pronounce it with a Capital "A" then an "r" followed by an "s" etc because I speak English and have that idiom and poor experience of them.
George Walker Yes! That drives me crazy! and "nucular" for "nuclear"
I'm amazed at your ability to search for and find mispronunciations.
Thanks Robby!
I think with “mischievous” people’s brains immediately flip to “devious” and want to pronounce it that way. Our brains read words as a whole, not individual letters, so that explanation makes sense to me at least.
I will deliberately pronounce it incorrectly randomly - it's more fun - although I was born in The House of an English Lord I failed _English Language_ the same year I won a Physics prize [not a Nobel - I was only 16] and did Advanced Math[s] after completing the standard syllabus in a few weeks - over the following 2 decades I used 15 other languages to export to 50 countries - 2020 I was working for Porsche BMW Jeep Suzuki and they terminated me (aka sacked fired dismissed) with hospitali[s or z]ed pneumonia as Prince Andrew collected his quarter million UBI his brother Charles tens of millions to subsidise his biscuit baking
Nah, she's wrong on this one. American English speakers almost always pronounce it mis-CHEE-veeus. It's silly that it's not recognized in the dictionary. Honestly, with all the other BS being incorporated into "official" dictionaries, it's silly that she picked this one. This pronunciation of mischievous is more accepted in the US than "they" being used as a pronoun for gender non-binary singular.
@@AlexeiArntzen true...A pronunciation \mis-ˈchē-vē-əs\ and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century.
@@AlexeiArntzen We Americans often mispronounce many words.
As an example, recently, the crowd at a NASCAR race in the US were chanting " let's go Brandon " but we're actually mispronouncing the words so it sounded exactly like they were saying F"(# Joe Biden
I agree! I would also say that I have only rarely heard it pronounced properly in America and even then it was always a British person who said it correctly. So I did not really know that was wrong until now…I thought it was a toMAYto tomAHto sort of thing.
I learned how to pronounce chaos from watching "Get Smart."
I'm not even entirely sure how I leaned the correct pronunciation, but it was definitely before I was actually taught it. Trachea too. It's just one of those words that I've always known how to pronounce.
@@hzla88
You're for sure my hero.
Chasm is another tricky one.
English is a strange language!
Yes KAOS always caused chaos lol
In British English, schedule is pronounced with an "sh" sound at the beginning. SHED-yul. I taught English as a foreign language in Spain for a year and we had both American and British teachers, so the students learned both. :)
Whenever I hear Americans pronouncing the word "schedule" it puts my nerves on edge. The only thing worse is their pronunciation of "le Mans" ie as in the 24hr motor race held in France ie they say Lee MANS ie as man/woman
@@rodsands7646 Then to be consistent, do you pronounce School as "shool"?
@@kevinpalmquist6020 Do you pronounce "schlep" as "sklep", then?
🇨🇦 here in Canada it is sh-ed-dule but we are so close in proximity and influence with the U.S. that both are widely used.
@@kimifur That's the point: there is not necessarily one precise way of pronunciation. But a Brit whose "nerves are set on end" by legitimate variation appears pompous.
Well done. Thank you!
My pleasure!
I’ve got a word you can add to your list “Realtor”. Many people say “Realator”.
It drives me nuts when I hear folks pronounce it ‘realator’. I cringe!
Wow, you read my mind when I saw triathlon. Realtor...same thing.
Don't forget the word library. I've heard it pronounced lie-berry way too often.
It pronounced "estate agent".
What about ask pronounced axe?
The work "ask" pronounced as "axe" just kills me every time.
An axe to the ear will do that every time!
It annoys me too, but on further reading, it turns out that it’s an archaic English pronunciation, that would have been common at the time the Puritans left England. - because after the restoration of the monarchy, everyone was fed up with their killjoy ways that had seen them ban sport, the theatre, singing, dancing, Christmas and anything else that could be fun in any way.
Ebonics
"eskewz me, but can I axe a question? I just want to axe a question? Can i axe a question? Sir? Sir? Siiiiir? Can I axe a question???"
That is cultural though. You were hearing a culture that is not your own. They can say it however they want. That is no different than some people saying ain’t. It might not be the rule but it is cultural and some people will always say it.
Note that aks was the original pronunciation, ask is the more recent "correction". Some dialects preserve the older pronunciation.
A draft is also a cool breeze or wind coming in through the window. Eg "It's very drafty in here--close the window. "
In England we pronounce schedule as sshedule with the "Sshh" sound (like when you're telling someone to be quiet!!) ❤
And con yak, not cone yak.
And draught is a horse, too.
We say skedule usually. I've never said shedule but I've heard the odd person say it.
@@lizb4156 correct English in New Zealand is shedyool, as if lieutenant pronounced with an f
@@joedennehy386 Most people say skedule in Britain.