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commonly mispronounced words in English

commonly mispronounced words in English

One of the toughest things about learning English is that words don’t always sound as you would expect them to. This is because English is a combination of so many other languages. English learners from all over the world face different challenges with pronunciation because of interference from their first language. There are, however, some words that learners from all over the world and many native-speakers have trouble with. Let’s take a look at them and learn to avoid few of the most common English pronunciation mistakes by Bangladeshi.

Few Words Mispronounced By Bangladeshi Their Whole Lives

10  most common English pronunciation mistakes people do worldwide:

Clothes

This word has only one syllable, the ‘e’ is silent and the ‘s’ makes a ‘zzz’ sound. Be careful not to say ‘clothe iz’.

Colleague

This word only has two syllables ‘koh-leeg’. Make sure not to pronounce the ‘ue’ on the end. When it’s a plural, the ‘s’ makes a ‘zzz’ sound like in ‘clothes’.

February

Many people have trouble pronouncing English words which have two ‘r’ sounds close together. Make sure to pronounce both ‘r’ sounds: Feb-roo-a-ree, not Feb-yoo-a-ree. Similarly, ‘library’ should be pronounced ‘li-bra-ri’.

Athlete

Be careful to avoid adding extra syllables in the middle of words. For example, make sure there are only two syllables in ‘athlete’: ath-leet, not ath-a-leet.

Escape and especially

Putting an extra ‘x’ sound in words with ‘es’ is a common mistake in English. Make sure to say ‘escape’ and ‘especially’ rather than ‘excape’ or ‘expecially’.

Wednesday

Watch out for silent letters. In the ‘Wednesday’, the ‘d’ is silent. The word is pronounced ‘wenz-day’.

Prescription

If you go to the doctor, he or she might give you a prescription to take to the pharmacist so you can buy any medicine you need. Sometimes people mix up the ‘re’ with ‘er’ and say ‘per-scrip-tion’ instead of pronouncing it correctly as ‘pre-scrip-tion’.

Ask

Mixing up the ‘s’ and ‘k’ in ‘ask’ is a very common mistake that many native-speakers make. In fact, it is a common part of some English dialects. If you are learning general English, make sure to say ‘ask’ not ‘ax’ so that it sounds correct to people all over the world.

Nuclear

Again, this is a word where people often get confused about the order of the sounds and pronounce it ‘nu-cu-lar’. Remember to get the sounds in the correct order and pronounce it ‘nuc-lee-ar’.

Pronunciation

The final common mistake is with the word ‘pronunciation’ itself! Many people get confused with the sound of the verb form ‘pronounce’ and say ‘pronounciation’ for the noun form. This is incorrect. Make sure to say ‘pro-nun-si-ay-shun’ if you want to be correct.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

 

For anyone learning a new language, speaking is often the most difficult skill to master. Why? Even if you know the right word, you may be nervous about pronouncing it incorrectly. Like anything, perfecting your English pronunciation simply takes practice.

  1. Read everything out loud
  2. Look while you listen
  3. Learn to love ASR  (Advanced Speech Recognition)
  4. Take tips from your teacher
  5. Try a Private Class

The tips above are just five simple ways to boost your spoken English in one week. Do you have any tips to share? Tell us below!

To know more 150 Most Commonly Mispronounced Words click here