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Friday, February 24, 2017

The toughest English words to pronounce II : geography edition



At the beginning of the month, I wrote an entry about the toughest English words to pronounce . Now I'll be writing a similar entry, only this time about geographical words. English cities and villages are usually very difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers of English, so in this post I did some digging regarding the pronunciation of the most difficult English places. To check the pronunciation, type the place in this webpage and you will hear how it is pronounced. You won't believe your ears. 

1. Norwich [‘nɒrɪʤ]
From : http://www.niyp.org.uk/
2. Greenwich [‘grenɪʤ] : It's not Grin-wuitch. 

From : http://keywordsuggest.org/gallery/222981.html 
3. Dulwich [d˄lɪʤ] : As you can see, there is silent <w> in Norwich, Greenwich and Dulwich ! 
4. Leicester [‘lestə]


5. Edinburgh ['edimbərə]


6. Durham [‘d˄rəm]. As you can hear, the <h> is not pronounced...

7. Derby [da:bi] : Yes, it is pronounced with long 'a' not 'e'. 

8. Buckingham [‘b˄kɪɳgəm] : Contrary to what most Spaniards think, the <h> is not pronounced...


9. Worcestershire [‘wʊstəʃə] : The key here is to say it really fast ! 

10. Thames [temz] : Yap, incredible thought it may sound, this is London's river. It only has one syllable ! 


11. Celtic [‘keltɪk] : Have a look at its first sound. 


Well, as you have seen, geographical words are hard to learn... and pronounce. Anyway, if I forgot any other place surprisingly pronounced, tell me and I'll include it in my list. 

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