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| bambi | Saturday 03rd of July 2004 03:22:30 AM |
| English is tough stuff - To all non-native speakers or English: try reading this!
It was written by Gerald Nolst Trenite, a Dutch interested in English pronounciation problems.. Read it aloud (if you can) "The Chaos" Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!! | |
| Alex | Saturday 03rd of July 2004 04:05:08 AM |
| That's amazing! - Wow!
I don't think I've ever seen a better illustration of phonetic exceptions. Thank you. A must to read out loud! | |
| Seafood_Clo | Friday 16th of July 2004 03:24:36 AM |
| - Hmm I found that pretty difficult to read aloud and my first language is English! | |
| Bruce B. | Monday 26th of July 2004 09:56:41 PM |
| we eat english from a trough - I never thought English was that that tough, though the thorough course is a lot to go through. | |
| zarkann | Wednesday 28th of July 2004 08:02:06 AM |
| Nice ! - Thats is nice rhymes :P can help alots in their learning process :)
i'll keep a copy on paper Thanks ! | |
| happyturnip | Tuesday 17th of August 2004 02:35:23 PM |
| - WOW! It really makes you wonder how English has got so widely used...I wouldn't want to learn it. I suppose it also explains why so few non-natives can speak without a foreign accent. There are just so many variations. It's common where I live for people to pronounce the same word in a different way depending on the company they're in E.g. Plaster/master can be pronounced with a hard A or an aaaaaah sound. Interesting! | |
| surfpanther | Friday 20th of August 2004 03:30:49 PM |
| English use ... - Well, it's not necessarily the ease with which it is learned and pronounced that made English a widely used language! Historical lessons would be of great help here (namely the drug trade of the 1600s and England's rise to power ...), but it's not the place.
In any case, that is a great illustration of the difficulty of English (and a challenging tongue-twister in some parts even for native speakers!) | |
| battakappu | Thursday 16th of September 2004 04:12:47 PM |
| - Wow. That is crazy. I've never realized how confusing English can be to a non-native speaker. :o | |
| ashleejs | Saturday 02nd of October 2004 06:05:04 PM |
| - Eep O.O If you're learning English, my advice is to learn to speak it properly first and then learn reading/spelling later like a child does.
Good rhyme though ^_^ I'm keeping this one! | |
| HisGirlFriday | Sunday 10th of October 2004 08:04:25 PM |
| - Yeah, that is a lot of rhyming and rhythm. But i suppose i am so use to the langauge that i just automatically seperate the sounds and stresses of the words that sound and look alike. But i do understand how hard it can be and it still is hard for English speakers who don't understand all the components of the English langauge. I know some people that could never read that type of work. They aren't very literate either, so like ashlee said...it is important to take English one step at a time. | |
| Consern | Friday 15th of October 2004 02:09:11 PM |
| - I definately had to take a second look at that. lol It was hard for me to even do that, and my language is english. lol Now I know how others feel that don't speak english as a native tongue. Wow! | |
| ashlee86 | Thursday 28th of October 2004 06:24:36 AM |
| - im so glad im english!! wen people say english is the hardest to learn you dont realise ,cos u can speak it but after readin that it jus points it out clearly!!! | |
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