Can you pronounce all this poem?

[poppy]

 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

Just shows how illogical the English language is!

 

(This is not my poem! )

 

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.
Foeffer 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!!!

 

[Athena]

That's a nice poem, where did you find it?

[frankie]

Heheh, most definitely not! That would've been a real find for the professor of my English pronunciation class...

 

(But never give up! )

[Chrissy]

I read this out loud yesterday, and I stumbled a few times with it.

 

It makes me realise what a fabulously tricky language English can be. Still fab though.

[frankie]

I read this out loud yesterday, and I stumbled a few times with it.

 

It makes me realise what a fabulously tricky language English can be. Still fab though.

 

Definitely tricky! But this sort of 'how to pronounce' thing etc makes for such great possibilities in wordplay! English is a mighty fine language

[poppy]

I read this out loud yesterday, and I stumbled a few times with it.

 

It makes me realise what a fabulously tricky language English can be. Still fab though.

 

I certainly stumbled more than a few times, and even some I thought I knew, I was pronouncing wrongly (I've never heard of Terpsichore, Melpomene or Foeffer!   )

 

Heheh, most definitely not! That would've been a real find for the professor of my English pronunciation class...

 

(But never give up! )

 

Imagine them setting this as a verbal exam test !!

 

This is a handy little site ....just type in the word and it says it for you.

 

http://www.howjsay.com/

[frankie]

I

Imagine them setting this as a verbal exam test !!

 

 

If they did that to students, I think it would be a clear sign they wanted students to fail (Or rather, not get any top grades)

[poppy]

If they did that to students, I think it would be a clear sign they wanted students to fail (Or rather, not get any top grades)

 

Seriously Frankie, as it said at the beginning, 90% of native English speakers would fail this, so where English is your second (or third or more) language, you'd be doing incredibly well to get half of these right! It is such an incredibly inconsistent language. I think some of the American pronunciations and spellings of words were an attempt to make words more uniform and logical.

[frankie]

Seriously Frankie, as it said at the beginning, 90% of native English speakers would fail this, so where English is your second (or third or more) language, you'd be doing incredibly well to get half of these right! It is such an incredibly inconsistent language. I think some of the American pronunciations and spellings of words were an attempt to make words more uniform and logical.

 

English really is famous for the inconsistency in pronunciation, it really is. You guys pronounce one vowel very differently according to what comes before and after said vowel. That doesn't happen in Finnish. We have only one way to pronounce each vowel and consonant. I love it how different the languages are

[Athena]

It happens now and then that I pronounce a word wrongly in English (my boyfriend tells me this, I wouldn't know unless I heard the word used by someone else or the TV). I find that English is quite inconsistent with these pronounciations, much more than Dutch (as far as I know).

[frankie]

It happens now and then that I pronounce a word wrongly in English (my boyfriend tells me this, I wouldn't know unless I heard the word used by someone else or the TV). I find that English is quite inconsistent with these pronounciations, much more than Dutch (as far as I know).

 

I've seen one of your book vlogs and your pronunciation is really brilliant

[poppy]

English really is famous for the inconsistency in pronunciation, it really is. You guys pronounce one vowel very differently according to what comes before and after said vowel. That doesn't happen in Finnish. We have only one way to pronounce each vowel and consonant. I love it how different the languages are

 

You're far more sensible Frankie   And a lot of languages are. I wonder why English is so contrary?? Probably something to do with sense of humour

I read somewhere that everyone is born with the ability to pronounce the sounds of every language, but if not used, that ability is lost. I'm not sure by what age, but it explains why we are unable to get our tongues correctly around different languages if we don't learn them early.

[pontalba]

You're far more sensible Frankie   And a lot of languages are. I wonder why English is so contrary?? Probably something to do with sense of humour

I read somewhere that everyone is born with the ability to pronounce the sounds of every language, but if not used, that ability is lost. I'm not sure by what age, but it explains why we are unable to get our tongues correctly around different languages if we don't learn them early.

First...love it!!!

 

Now. My resident OH tells me that ........."English has roots in many other languages and the result is a mongrel or b*st*rd language. Politely called polyglot." He says a lot of it is also due to "The Great Vowel Shift".

[frankie]

You're far more sensible Frankie   And a lot of languages are. I wonder why English is so contrary?? Probably something to do with sense of humour

Well you gotta love a sense of humour! We Finns are too serious with our language...

 

 

I read somewhere that everyone is born with the ability to pronounce the sounds of every language, but if not used, that ability is lost. I'm not sure by what age, but it explains why we are unable to get our tongues correctly around different languages if we don't learn them early.

This is true. It's said that when one is a baby and learning one's mother tongue, all the different languages are as easy to learn. It comes naturally. But after that certain age all that's gone. At a later age, some languages are easier to learn than others.

Edited May 26, 2014 by frankie

[Athena]

I've seen one of your book vlogs and your pronunciation is really brilliant

x

Thanks !

x

Now. My resident OH tells me that ........."English has roots in many other languages and the result is a mongrel or b*st*rd language. Politely called polyglot." He says a lot of it is also due to "The Great Vowel Shift".

x

That's interesting !

[emelee]

That's one tongue-stumbler!