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  • (soft music)

  • - Hello everyone, welcome back to English with Lucy.

  • Today is a video that can be appropriate

  • for both native speakers,

  • all you people who have English as a mother tongue,

  • and also non-native speakers, people who are learning

  • English as a second or as an additional language.

  • It might be your third language.

  • I know some of you are completely crazy

  • and are on your seventh language.

  • Comment down below and tell me how many languages you speak.

  • I'm going to talk to you

  • about words that are hard to pronounce.

  • There will be 20 words in total

  • and it's going to be a bit of a tongue twister even for me.

  • I love doing these pronunciation videos.

  • I've done a couple before.

  • I did one on commonly mispronounced words

  • by non-native speakers,

  • the 10 words that you might pronounce incorrectly,

  • which you can watch by clicking here.

  • And also 10 words that native speakers

  • might pronounce incorrectly as well,

  • and you can click here as well to see that.

  • Yep, these videos have been really, really popular

  • and whenever I ask you guys

  • what kind of videos you'd like to see, you want to see

  • pronunciation videos of commonly mispronounced words.

  • So here it is!

  • Before we get started,

  • this video is very kindly sponsored by Lingoda,

  • the company that I've been working with for ages.

  • If you don't know about Lingoda,

  • it's an online language academy.

  • You can learn French, Spanish, English, or German

  • with real native teachers in both private and group lessons.

  • If you want to see a review I did of the platform

  • then you can click here.

  • And that's a full review of Lingoda.

  • And they've very kindly given me a discount for that.

  • It's 50 euros, or 50 US dollars,

  • off your first month at Lingoda.

  • It's a great offer.

  • Don't miss out.

  • You can claim that by clicking on the link

  • in the description box and using the code ENGLUCY5.

  • The code is also in the description box, don't worry.

  • Right, let's get started with the video.

  • Now the first word I want to talk to you about is this one.

  • How do you saw it?

  • Go on, give it a go.

  • (laughing)

  • The word is choir.

  • Choir.

  • The next word, number two, is this one.

  • It's difficult because we've got the er sound twice.

  • Rural, rural.

  • (mumbles), it doesn't sound nice when I say it.

  • Rural.

  • Now the next one, number three, is actually a place name.

  • It's a county in the UK.

  • Is Worcestershire.

  • Worcestershire.

  • So people want to say Worcestershire, or Worcestershire,

  • but it should be woosta, woosta, Worcestershire.

  • How do we pronounce, and that brings me on to my next one,

  • number four, which is this.

  • Is it shire, is it shire, or is it shire?

  • The answer is it can be all of them.

  • Officially it should be shire, or shire,

  • but a lot of people blend the two and say shire.

  • That's what my family and I say.

  • We're from Bedfordshire.

  • I'm living in Cambridgeshire.

  • The next one, number five, is prelude, prelude.

  • A lot of people want to say prelude, or prelude,

  • but it should be prelude.

  • The next one, number six, are we on number six?

  • Yes.

  • The next one, number six,

  • is a word that most native people will know

  • but when I was teaching Spaniards English

  • they never knew how to pronounce it

  • because it's quite a complicated spelling.

  • It's this one.

  • How do we say it?

  • It's squirrel, squirrel.

  • And that irrel, irrel,

  • people with Chinese as their mother tongue,

  • that might be a really difficult one

  • because ir and ul often get confused.

  • So squirrel, squirrel.

  • Two syllables there.

  • The next one, number seven.

  • This one.

  • We've got that er sound again.

  • Juror, juror.

  • Also people suffer with the juror, er sound.

  • Juror.

  • It's a very complicated mouth movement

  • that you have to make.

  • Er.

  • I almost stick my chin when I say it.

  • Juror, juror.

  • Beautiful angle there.

  • The next one, number eight.

  • Spherical, spherical.

  • It's a very satisfying one to say, isn't it?

  • Spherical.

  • A lot of people say spherical

  • because we have a sphere and a sphere is spherical.

  • But it should be eh, not ir, eh.

  • Spherical.

  • Number nine, this one.

  • Frenchies, where are you, because this one is yours.

  • Valet, valet.

  • But you will hear some people saying valet, valet.

  • That pronunciation is accepted by some dictionaries

  • but come on, guys.

  • Let's say valet.

  • Number 10, pronunciation.

  • (laughing)

  • Now this one is a really common mistake.

  • Pronunciation, how you pronounce something.

  • A lot of people will say pronunciation.

  • Sometimes I get accused of saying pronunciation in my videos

  • but really it is just my accent.

  • Pronunciation, nunciation.

  • I say it so quickly and people like to pick at me

  • and wait for me to make a mistake

  • because I'm meant to be correct all the time.

  • Number 11.

  • This one I've heard so many different pronunciations

  • that I honestly before researching this video

  • didn't know which one was right.

  • It should be mauve, mauve.

  • Many people will say mauve or mauve

  • but it should be mauve.

  • The next one, number 12.

  • Regime, regime.

  • Which one should it be?

  • It should be regime.

  • I've got a new regime.

  • The next one, number 13, is this one.

  • Now because it comes from French

  • it should be pronounced niche with a shh,

  • a soft shh sound at the end, unvoiced.

  • But many people will pronounce it niche,

  • which sounds so ugly compared to niche,

  • which is so beautiful and airy and breathy,

  • and then niche.

  • Niche?

  • Yes, niche!

  • The next one, number 14,

  • is more a confusion between two words.

  • It's moot, moot.

  • It's a matter about which

  • there may be discussion or confusion

  • but people generally confuse it with mute,

  • which means silent, not speaking, not making a noise.

  • Moot, mute.

  • The next one, this one.

  • You might ask for a nice beer.

  • It's draught.

  • I used to work in a pub

  • and I heard people ask for a draught beer a couple of times,

  • but it's a draught, draught beer.

  • Number 16, this one.

  • Yes, in my lifetime I have heard someone say albeit.

  • Albeit?

  • And I was thinking albeit?

  • What do they mean?

  • Turns out it's albeit, albeit.

  • The next one, and this is one that my Italian ex-flatmate

  • used to pronounce incorrectly all the time.

  • He used to say lettuce.

  • (laughing)

  • "Lettuce in the house!"

  • No, it's lettuce, lettuce.

  • Yeah, confusing spelling there.

  • The next one,

  • a word that you might not use in everyday conversation,

  • but it's an interesting one because it's such a bizarre

  • spelling and pronunciation difference,

  • colonel, not colonel.

  • Colonel.

  • Why, why?

  • I'm sure there's a fabulous reason behind it, actually.

  • (electronic notification)

  • I just researched it.

  • It was colonel and then colonel

  • and that's where the modern pronunciation came from.

  • Colonel, just a squashed up version of colonel.

  • The next one, number 19, is another place name

  • and this one is important because we have GMT.

  • I hear a lot of people saying Greenwich

  • and I can totally understand why you would say that,

  • because reading it, Greenwich, it makes sense.

  • But no, it's Greenwich, Greenwich.

  • The next one, infamous.

  • I've heard a couple of people pronounce it infamous,

  • which is incorrect.

  • Infamous.

  • Number 20, this one.

  • I used to pronounce this incorrectly.

  • This one is gauge,

  • but it looks like it should be pronounced gorg.

  • But no, it's gauge.

  • You're gorg, this is gauge.

  • Gorgeous, you all look gorgeous.

  • That's it for today's video.

  • Thank you so much to Lingoda for sponsoring the video

  • and making this all happen.

  • Don't forget to check out the link in the description box

  • and use the code ENGLUCY5

  • to gain your 50-euro or 50-US-dollars discount

  • off your first month at Lingoda.

  • Loads and loads of lucifors have tried it out

  • and they're really, really happy.

  • I don't think I've ever heard

  • a negative comment about it, actually.

  • Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

  • I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, and my Twitter.

  • And I will see you soon for another lesson.

  • Bye!

  • (soft music)

(soft music)

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