Have you ever wondered how to pronounce these 10 difficult words?
Keep on watching to find out.
So welcome to our lesson today.
I am super excited because this is a really good lesson.
Today, we have 10 words...they're very common words.
But they're also a little bit difficult to pronounce
Some because they're a little long.
Others because they have a whole bunch of vowel sounds thrown in there.
So it can be a little bit confusing.
What I will do is I will tell you the correct pronunciation.
I will tell you why they're difficult to pronounce.
And I will also give you an example sentence, so you can hear it in context.
Are you ready to become a pronunciation rock star?
Join me.
Number one is EXHAUSTED.
This is a really, really common word.
Exhausted...it means tired.
The "e" sound, sounds like a like a /g/.
Like a G sound.
We say [ig - zawst - id].
The other reason why this word is difficult is because the H is silent.
So when you see it, just ignore the H.
And its exhausted.
And the third reason why this word is hard to pronounce is because of the -ed at the end.
In this case, we say it.
It's exhausted. Say with me. Exhausted.
Number two...BREWERY.
Yeah, that's right. You heard me right.
It's hard to say.
So if you don't know what a brewery is it is where people brew beer.
This one, even just saying it, it's obvious why it's difficult to pronounce.
And that is because of the R sounds.
It's very, very faint. A very soft R sound, which in itself could be a very difficult sound to pronounce.
The second reason why this can be difficult is because
right after the first syllable, we have a schwa sound which is a shortened vowel sound.
And of course in the the third syllable you have
another R sound which is a little bit more pronounced than the first sound.
When you say it, they all kind of mesh together.
Say with me.
Brewery.
This is true. Wes and I took a tour of a brewery a few years back and it was a lot of fun.
Brewery.
The third word is a little bit long which makes it difficult to say.
This word is ANTARCTICA.
Basically what you have to do is you have to kind of break it down when you say it.
You can start with the first syllable which is "ant."
The second syllable is "ahrk."
Keep in mind that for this word the stress is on the second syllable.
Put it all together and you get...
Say it with me.
Now say it really fast.
Antarctica. Antarctica. Antarctica. Antarctica.
See, it's hard. Don't do it. Don't say it fast.
Number four...PHENOMENON.
This one is hard because it's long.
But it's not that hard if you break it apart.
Now we can break up this word in four syllables.
First of all, the PH sound, it makes an F sound.
It's a /f/. So we have...
The third syllable is a schwa. Say it with me.
Number five...SPECIFIC.
Now this word can be difficult because of that middle syllable.
The C makes an S sound.
Now I know a lot of English language learners may mispronounce the /i/ sound.
It is not /ee/. It's not [spi - see - fic].
It's a short /i/ sound. So we say...
Specific.
Say it after me.
You got it. Say it again. Specific.
Number six, another long word, TEMPERATURE.
Now if you look up this word you will see that it technically has four syllables.
But I think most people pronounce it with only three syllables.
So we have to kind of shorten everything.
We end up saying...
In the second syllable, we drop the E completely and we add a schwa.
The TU together are pronounced as a /ch/ sound.
Say it with me now.
Number seven...RURAL.
This is a hard one.
Oh gosh, you guys. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for doing this to you.
The R sounds do make the words difficult, in this one especially.
In the first syllable we have /roo/.
And then in the second we have a /ruhl/.
And of course there's a schwa in the second syllable.
It's very fast. So you have to be kind of fast with it.
So say it with me please.
Rural.
Number eight...CHOIR.
Now this is a short word, but it is difficult to say for a few different reasons.
First of all, the CH together in this case does not make a /ch/ sound.
For example, the word "channel" makes a /ch/ sound.
But not in this case. The CH sound together is a /k/ sound.
The second reason is that the O sound is an /ah/.
So, put it all together and you get...
Choir.
Number nine is a LITERATURE.
And this word...it's a little bit difficult because it''s long, first of all.
Of course you have the L and Rs, which make this word even more difficult.
We have the R and the schwa sound, and the T and U don't make a /too/ sound /tuh/ sound.
They make a /ch/ sound, just like in temperature.
So we have...
Say it after me.
Literature.
Number ten is a SQUIRREL.
I used to have a theory that the word "squirrel" is cute in every language.
So I'm kind of curious. Please, in the comments, let me know how do you say squirrel in your language.
Does it sound cute?
But the word squirrel, whether you believe me that it's cute or not, it can be a little bit harder to pronounce.
It's just two syllables, and it goes like this.
And then the second one.
There's just a schwa sound.
So let's see it together.
So cute.
Okay. So now that I've told you the words that I think are
difficult to pronounce, I want to hear from you.
In the comments, please let me know what other words do you find difficult to pronounce.
Write them down, and maybe we'll do a lesson explaining them.
If you found this lesson useful, don't forget to give a thumbs up.
Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time.
Bye.