Most people are very comfortable cursing in their native language, because it is (for so many of us) something we do every day. In recent years, certain English curse words have become very popular also in other languages, most notably the four-letter word starting with an F (yes, an F, see here). However, cursing in
Here is another example (for the first, see here) of what can go wrong when non-native speakers put too much effort into their American accent (in this case a successful German scientist who has been living and working in the US for many years). The name Kelvin, used for the unit of temperature and referring
The pronunciation of Chicago, home of Al Bundy and Al Capone, seems to be tricky for many non-native speakers. The problem is that the ‘ch’ is not pronounced as in words such as change, chance or chocolate. Instead, it is pronounced like the ‘ch’ in champagne or chandelier. The phonetic spelling is [ʃˈɪkɑːɡəʊ] or, also,
In their commercials promoting a special type of athletic gear that supposedly improves performance, SKINS uses the phrase “Cheat Legal“. One of the videos can be watched here. The word “legal” in this phrase can either be an adverb characterizing the verb “cheat” (in which case it should be replaced by the grammatically correct form
Whenever I attend a scientific talk, or read scientific publications, there is a significant chance that somebody forgets about the fact that data is the plural of datum. Hence, strictly speaking, it is wrong to say This data shows that… Instead, you should say These data show that… Because the mistake is so common, some
You all know that the plural of man is men. In line with the different spelling, the words man and men also have different pronunciations, namely [mæn] for man and [men] for men, respectively. Listen to both pronunciations here, and make sure you can tell the difference. The motivation for this post comes from a whole
The names of books and their authors are frequently used in any language. However, correctly pronouncing a book title or its author’s name (or the names of some of the characters) seems to be quite hard. Here are some interesting examples. In some cases, the problem is a general one, namely a lack of interest
Here’s a false friend a German lady reminded me of today on the train. The correct translation of the German word Platz (short for Sitzplatz) is not place, but seat. Hence, if you are trying to defend or claim your seat, do not say This is my place! Moreover, when asking if a seat is
I just overheard an English phone conversation on the bus. A German university student gave instructions how to mop a floor, using the sentence Take few water, and few soap. I was quite surprised that such a rather simple sentence could turn out to be so difficult for a young person who has spent many
Whenever I watch Formula 1 on German TV, I notice that the commentators pronounce Caterham incorrectly, namely either as cat-er-ham [ˈkætəhæm], listen here, or as cater–ham [‘keɪtəhæm]. In both cases, the letter r is not pronounced, and the second part, –ham, is pronounced just like ham. The problem is that—as is often the case with