Hi and welcome back to lab English my name is Leila and I am a British
University language teacher. Now, today I have a rather different lesson for you
because this lesson is going to help native speakers as well I'm going to be
looking at the top ten words that British people mispronounce let's bear
in mind that we do have varying forms of pronunciation sometimes American and
British pronunciation can be a little bit different a few of these words come
under that category now I'm not saying that American pronunciation is wrong
however some English people might not realize they're actually using the
American pronunciation rather than the British I'm even guilty of doing this so
for non-native speakers this should reassure you a little bit mistakes in
grammar and even pronunciation are common whether you are a native or
non-native speaker so therefore don't worry if you make a few errors when you
speak because even we do it ourselves so
the top ten words natives mispronounce right let's get started number one now
in the UK we have traditionally been a nation of tea drinkers however I think
with Starbucks and other coffee shops we found ourself drinking a lot more coffee
why is it then we seem to always mispronounce this word espresso espresso
now Italians this is their word so they usually get it right but English people
often add an X expresso expresso I think they're getting confused between Express
meaning fast quickly and espresso so number one guys next time you're in
Starbucks order an espresso number two this is not so much word as a letter but
it does get very frustrating when English people pronounce it wrong
H H naught H H very often English people will pronounce it with a H now this is
more the sound than the pronunciation of the actual letter of course that breathy
sound something the Italians often don't like is a very common sound in English
when you have H at the beginning of a word Hospital hotel hallway happy but
the actual letter H right number three so this is a little bit embarrassing
but I actually pronounce this word wrong schedule schedule with us and schedule
schedule with a Shh sound the difference in pronunciation neither is actually
wrong but one is American do you know which I pronounce this word schedule
schedule that is the American of pronunciation
so I actually pronounce the word technically wrong for British
pronunciation British is schedule schedule so you can see that with the
influence of American culture I watch lots of American television programs and
films the pronunciation has changed over time and very often people now adopt
some forms of American pronunciation whether that's a good or bad thing up to
you okay number four is a kind of understandable mispronunciation this
word looks really weird so some kind of like couscous style food lots of healthy
people eat it I prefer rice and couscous really now British people often
pronounce this word Quin OA
it's not it looks like it it really does but the actual pronunciation is quinoa
quinoa we mispronounce it a lot so let me know is that a word that you have
mispronounced before whether you are a native or non-native speaker I'm kind of
curious I mispronounce it and I still will probably mispronounced it after
this lesson because it's just a weird word okay number five now I've got a
nice story to share with you here I first realized I mispronounced at this
word when I was on a date my first date with my now lovely boyfriend of six
years he is in fact Italian and when I said this word in the restaurant
thinking I was very sophisticated pronouncing the word correctly as I
ordered my food he looked at me with a rather strange expression and corrected
my mispronunciation bruschetta bruschetta the British I think probably
nine point nine times out of ten will pronounce it bruschetta bruschetta and
of course it is a foreign word it's an Italian word I'll put a picture of a
nice bruschetta bruschetta up here so bruschetta is an Italian word in Italian
the SCH the C in the H is going to be a sound so Swiss ketta
whereas in British English obviously when we see an S and an H anywhere near
each other we think shh-shh so there you go a bit confusing but next
time you're in an Italian restaurant try and get it right order the bruschetta
right number six this is very commonly mispronounced and it's a bit like
expresso we add a sound that really doesn't belong there
etc etc it is not etc etc with a an X there that's not how we say it
etc etc right number seven I'm really not doing well today because I think
this is a word that I also mispronounced mischievious know mischievous better now
I think this has kind of developed so that mischievious is an accepted form of
pronunciation however the correct the original pronunciation should be three
syllables mischievous mischievous not mischievious so I've added an extra
syllable and I've lengthened the pronunciation the e sound mischievious
compared to mischievous so do you say that word wrong I want to know if you're
like me and you mispronounce it I really do think that it's acceptable to say
mischievous but I've noticed that it's more the younger generations that
actually pronounce it this way so let me know below do you say mischievous three
syllables or mischievious four and then ask yourself how old are you you don't
have to tell me but generally speaking under 35s will
have four syllables mischievous so that's actually me I still come under
that category and over thirty-five so older generations will say mischievous
okay number eight now I'm not really into sport meaning I'm not very
interested in it athlete so there should be two syllables
athlete athlete many native speakers will actually say athlete athlete adding
another syllable so this is a common thing we do like mischievous mischievous
athlete athlete how complicated is pronunciation okay number nine is a bit
more of a specific word we probably use it a little bit less
the others however it is one that I have heard mispronounced I don't do this
myself haha but the word is niche niche often we refer to niche markets when
we're talking about market segmentation and promoting products but niche you can
see again it's another confusion with the spelling some English people might
pronounce it niche niche with a sound it's not it is niche with a Shh at the
end finally number 10 and I've saved this to last because I really think this
is ironic when we use the verb we say pronounce pronounce however the noun is
pronunce pronunciation pronunciation and I can't
tell you how many times I have heard English people say this role rather than
saying pronunciation they get confused with the verb and they say pronunciation
absolutely wrong I've even seen this word mispronounced on YouTube
pronunciation videos so pronounce pronunciation pronounce pronunciation
that's like a really annoying one for me so if you are English and you've been
getting that wrong correct it now that's it ten words that English people
commonly mispronounced so whether you are English or a non-native speaker
learning English hopefully you will now correct your pronunciation and get those
right don't forget if you haven't already do subscribe to our Channel and
keep watching there's lots more pronunciation videos coming up