9 Words Americans Pronounce Mispronounce

Discover 9 words native speakers often mispronounce. You’ll be amazed. Plus, you’ll nail them next time.

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Video Transcript:

 

I was so embarrassed. One time, hanging out with friends, I completely mispronounced a word. The stress was wrong, the sounds were wrong, it wasn’t even close. And it was a grammar word, and I teach English! We all make mistakes, especially when it comes to pronouncing words, even native speakers of English. Even adults. So this video is for you, my students, non-native speakers of English who are sometimes embarrassed when they mispronounce a word. You are not alone. 

Today, we’re going over 9 words that Americans have mispronounced. You’ll learn about pronunciation, you’ll learn some new vocabulary words, and if you’re a native speaker and you have a story of mispronouncing a word, or hearing one mispronounced, please put it in the comments below. I love collecting your stories. 

As always, if you liked this video or if you learned something new, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe with notifications on. I’d love to see you back here.

The word I mispronounced was this one. Guess how it’s pronounced. It’s a noun, and it means a verb being used as a noun. It’s used to express something generalized. Learn, learning, for example. I’m learning to drive. There, it’s a verb. But I could say: The best learning happens in the real world. The best learning. There, I’m using learning as a noun. 

This word is pronounced ‘gerund’. And when I was hanging out with some friends one weekend, I said: gerund. Wrong consonants, wrong vowels, wrong stress. I got everything wrong. So the camera wasn’t rolling when I said it but it was rolling when my friend brought it up again later to make fun of me. She has pie in her mouth so it’s a little hard to hear but she says ‘gerund’. And I say, I was waiting for that to come up. 

Gerund.

I was waiting.

I was waiting for that to come up.

So don’t be like me. It’s gerund. 

Gerund.

We’re just going to have everyone  text each other randomly the word ‘gerund’.

Gerund. I had never heard this word spoken before, I’d only ever seen it written. I came to the conclusion, my pronunciation, my wrong pronunciation was influenced by my study of German. And since I studied German in a classroom as an adult, it’s possible I heard this word pronounced in German. Listen to it. 

The first two syllables Americanized it the pronunciation I chose. 

Gerund.

I was waiting.

I was waiting for that to come up.

Gerund.

We’re just going to have everyone  text each other randomly the word ‘gerund’.

I will never live that down. The phrase to live something down is almost always used in the negative. I will never live that down. You won’t live that down. And it means live long enough to wipe out memories or effects of something. I will never live that down. My friends will always remember that about me, and probably, they’ll always make fun of me for that. 

Let’s get into a few mispronunciations that you all suggested in comments to other videos. 

One of you suggested ‘chic’. SH consonant, EE vowel, K. A word of French origin, Dictionary.com gives just one pronunciation of it, chic. I’ve also heard this word mispronounced. 

This chic 11,000 square foot house has 5 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. 

This word is chic. Not to be confused with cheek. Or chick, a baby chicken. Chic. Very fashionable, stylish. Do you know anyone who is specially chic? Here are a few examples of the correct pronunciation. 

Men who I think are chic and inspiring. 

While women paraded down the boulevard wearing these chic gowns. 

Make it a little more chic. 

The glasses are basically a chic round frame.

Have you ever noticed with ES words like espresso, especially, escape, these words are sometimes pronounced as if the S were an X. KS instead of sss– S. That’s not the pronunciation. The drink is espresso. There is no K sound in it. Espresso, not expresso. That’s mixing up two words. Espresso and express. So you don’t want to say:

Espresso. You know, I just want to emphasize, again, I like to show clips of people mispronouncing words to normalize it. These are not dumb people. English is just hard. So for all my students studying English as a foreign language, even we as native speakers, we get you. It’s tough. Let’s hear some examples of correct pronunciation of espresso. 

Especially. Not especially. Not…

And one more like this, escape. This one’s confusing. There is a K sound, but it comes after the S, not before. Escape. Escape. To get away, to avoid capture. Not excape. Escape. So, not:

But instead:

Okay, this next one, Big Mac, thank you for your suggestion. People are all over the place with this one. And some were dictionaries. Dictionary.com and the Cambridge Dictionary gave one pronunciation, but it’s not the same pronunciation. Dictionary.com says its: eschew. Cambridge says its: eschew. So different vowels in the first syllable. This word, by the way, means to intentionally avoid something, to give something up. I’m eschewing dessert this month to lose weight. For example.

Oxford varies a bit. They give us eschew, yet another different vowel in the first syllable, they also say: eschew is the correct pronunciation. And Merriam Webster gives us: eschew and eschew. Two more acceptable pronunciations. That gives us a total of 6 pronunciations listed in dictionaries and there’s a little overlap from dictionary to dictionary. That’s rare. I don’t think I’ve ever come across another word where there is such little agreement among major dictionaries on pronunciation. With this in mind, I guess, maybe there’s no wrong pronunciation. I think you could reasonably defend any of these 6 options. So, what’s most common?

I went to one of my favorite research sites, Youglish, and I found this pronunciation breakdown. Eschew is definitely the most common pronunciation in American English. Even though  some of the major dictionaries don’t even list it as a pronunciation. This is a pretty sophisticated word so I’m guessing it might be new to a lot of my students. Remember, the definition is to avoid something. To give something up. We’re going to listen to 10 examples now. Real life examples so you can see different situations and sentences to build your understanding of how to use this word. You’ll hear a couple of different pronunciations.

And now, we’re going to have to move on with one that has more to do with writing. Do you know these two words? Americans sometimes mix them up in writing and it’s easy to see why. One of them is loose, and the other one is lose. One is spelled with one O and the other, two, but the difference in pronunciation isn’t the vowel, it’s the ending consonant. One is an S, loose, the other is a Z, lose. The one with one O, the verb, has the Z pronunciation. When the final sound is voiced, like here, zzz, that’s a voiced sound, the Z. It tends to make the vowel longer. So think of the OO vowel being longer here that in lose, which is the opposite of what you might think because it’s written with just one letter O and the other, with two. But the vowel here is longer. Lose. With the weak ending Z. This is a verb and it means to come to be without something. To fail to retain something. sample sentences: I might lose my job. I’m ordering two pair because I know at some point, we’ll lose one of his mittens. Past tense, lost. Drop the E, add a T, and the vowel changes. Now, AH as in Father. This can be a trick you use to help you in writing. If it’s the verb, if you can make it a past tense with lost, one O in lost, so one O in lose. That might keep you from accidentally spelling with two O’s. With two O’s, loose, the ending is the S sound. This is most commonly an adjective, meaning free. Released, not secure, not tight. Buying shoes for Stoney, we have to check: are they too tight? Too loose? Or just right?

Recently, I found my colleague Tom, who’s been teaching American English Pronunciation with me for over 10 years, mispronouncing a word. I was listening to some audio he recorded for the Academy. We have lots of audio training in the Academy, at RachelsEnglishAcademy.com and he recorded this word. In American English, it’s pronounced nauseous with the SH sound. Tom said: nauseous. Djzz– Djzz– similar to sh– but there’s voice in it. Sh– Djzz– Sh– Djzz– Two different sounds. I did see in the dictionary that Djzz– is an acceptable pronunciation in British English. But of all the clips I found online, I only found one example of that. In all the others, it was an SH or this very British pronunciation: nauseous. In American English, it’s with the sh– SH sound: nauseous. But look at this, the noun, nausea, the Djzz– sound is now that most common pronunciation of this word. Nauseous. Shh– Adjective. Nausea.  Djzz– Noun. Nausea. A feeling of sickness in the stomach. Nauseous. An adjective, feeling that sickness. I feel nauseous. I feel like I might throw up. 

Is there a word you’ve mispronounced terribly? Put it in the comments below, let’s support our brave learners of English by sharing our own embarrassing stories. It might even inspire a future video here on YouTube. Click the I here if you want to see other videos of examples of words that Americans sometimes mispronounce. And follow me anywhere, or everywhere. Keep your learning going with this video. I make new videos on the English language once a week here on YouTube, be sure to subscribe with notifications to catch them all, I love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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