English pronunciation can be tricky. In addition to sounds which are not used in many other languages, the pronunciation of a given letter can depend on the letters nearby or even on the whole word. In this post, I want to given a rather detailed discussion of the pronunciation of the letter t. A key
While listening to German radio the other day, I noticed that the presenter repeatedly pronounced the German word Passwort incorrectly. The mistake was that he pronounced “Pass-” as in the British pronunciation of the English word password, listen here and here. The correct pronunciation of Passwort can be found here. I find the mistake quite
The German word Kindergarten has become part of the English language in the form of kindergarten. Interestingly, many native and non-native speakers instead use kindergarden. However, the dictionaries I consulted only include the word kindergarten. Moreover, there is no official support for pronouncing kindergarten like kindergarden. The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary provides the British and the
If you are over 30 and live in the non-English speaking part of Europe (also known as the Continent in the UK), there is a good chance that you remember the times when the Twix candy bar was called Raider. The name was changed to Twix in 1991 (see here), but Raider bars have recently
Have you also noticed that more and more German-speaking people refer to their parents as Mum and Dad when speaking German instead of, for example, Mama and Papa? This phenomenon does not seem to be restricted to those who have a strong relation to the English language, such as bilingual children or people who lived
Halloween (or Hallowe’en, see here) has in recent years also become a tradition in Europe. For quite some time, I have been wondering what the correct pronunciation of Halloween is. My usual source, the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, lists [hæləʊ’iːn] as the standard British pronunciation, and [hæloʊ’iːn] as the standard American pronunciation. The Oxford English Dictionary
The correct pronunciation of th seems to be one of the bigger challenges for people who want to learn the English language. Apart from the fact that the pronunciation of th varies from word to word, some of the sounds associated with th do not exist in other languages, and may therefore be difficult or
I have previously discussed the fact that the letter p is often silent in English, see here, and that this causes quite some problems with non-native speakers. Today, I want to discuss the letter w, which is also often silent. For example, the w is not pronounced in any of the following words (click to
With the movie about Abraham Lincoln out on DVD now, let me discuss the pronunciation of the name Lincoln. In contrast to the incorrect pronunciation often used by nonnative speakers, the second l in Lincoln is silent. The phonetic spelling is hence [ˈlɪŋkən]. You can listen to it here. A quick search on youtube brought
The word surface is often mispronounced as [ˈsɜfeɪs], that is, with the second syllable, face, pronounced just like the word face itself. I have the impression that this mistake has become much more frequent here in Germany owing to the increased popularity of Microsoft’s Surface tablet. The correct pronunciation of surface in both British and