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Commonly Mispronounced Words


Baburra

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I always hear people saying "shepherd" with an "F" sound instead of keeping the "H" silent and rightfully pronouncing it as "sheh-perd". I find it understandable since the H is there and almost screams to be used and mentioned.

I've probably noticed a lot of these instances throughout my lifetime, but somehow this is just the one word that really stood out to me enough for me. Anyone else have any other notable examples of commonly mispronounced words? I'd love to be reminded of them.

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I think this is more prevalent with brand names. I remember one time when I was in a restaurant with my girlfriend and there is a group of young ladies seated next to our table, and their voices are kinda loud so I overheard they were talking about bags and other fashion stuff, and one lady pronounced "Hermes" literally when the first letter should be silent letter. I also often hear people say "Porsche" as "Prosh" when it should be pronounced as "Porsha". But these can be excused as these brand names have foreign origins, which is why I am not one to throw a stone at the guilty ones as I admit that I have my flaws too. I often pronounce "February" as "Febyuary", and this is not even a brand name so it makes it all the more embarrassing.  :laugh:

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Native Spanish speakers (and possibly other languages) who haven't grasped the English language pronounce all words that end in -ed wrong. I imagine it must be hard to reverse the idea that you pronounce all letters (well, except the H). When I was teaching, it was hard to explain it's, for example, 'workd' not work-ed. Also, anything with the -th sound. That's a hard one too.

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The ones where I tend to notice it the most are those words that are also medical terms. If you actually start to listen to people, you will notice that you can frequently hear the words said time and time again and never hear it pronounced the same way twice.

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This kind of error in pronouncing often takes place with children or adults when using words that are of foreign origin. I was in the US and witnessed a foreigner reading the sign on the door to the deli. Instead of saying bagel, she pronounced the word ba-jel. another word I heard pronounced incorrectly recently was peking (peeking) which the person called pecking.

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Any word with the ''th'' sound is hard, specially the word ''teeth'', but anything in English is way easier to pronounce that any Dutch word you pick randomly!  I love the fact is so easy to predict the pronunciation of most English words, but with Dutch I rarely know. So hard! 

English is a very easy to learn language, I know I can fix my minor pronunciation issues if I put some effort into it this year. I need to check the pronunciation of several words and that will be it :)  I'll create a list.

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There are so many mispronounced words.

One of them that most people mess up is BARBED WIRE. Folks across the 50 states say BOB WIRE. Thank goodness this material isn't as prevalent as in the past. Maybe, this is the reason why people can't pronounce it.

:speechless:

barbed-wire-armband.jpg

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