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"months" pronunciation | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5362 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 14 05 December 2012 at 7:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I just heard today a non-native English speaker say the word "months" in a rather odd way. I had never thought it was a difficult word but then I realized the "th-s" combination at the end of it could be weird to some people.
Do any non-native English speakers have problems with the pronunciation of this word? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gosiak Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5128 days ago 241 posts - 361 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Norwegian, Welsh | Message 2 of 14 05 December 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Plenty of Polish native speakers have problems with the 'th' sound and the additional 's' makes it even more tricky. 'Th' is very often pronounced as 't' or 'f', this sound just does not come naturally and knowing the way it is produced helps a lot, one starts to pronounce it right (consciously) and it gets into a habit. The word "sixth" is even more challenging.
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| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4561 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 3 of 14 05 December 2012 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||
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It's definitely one the trickier sound combinations for me, and I sometimes mispronounce it if I haven't been speaking much English for a while.
Edit: I happened to catch the words "research service" on the radio just now, reminding me of another difficult one: "ch-s". It's not so bad when you're speaking slowly, but I've tripped up on it many a time in fast-paced conversation. Edited by sans-serif on 05 December 2012 at 8:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Thomas_DC Triglot Groupie Denmark Joined 5776 days ago 58 posts - 65 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, French Studies: German, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 14 05 December 2012 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's indeed very difficult to pronounce. I'm really fond of the English band "the smiths", but i always end up spitting at whoever i am talkning to about them. This seems to take the top of their part of the enthusiasm ;)
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 14 05 December 2012 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I ate two sixths of the
pizza. That's a K, an S, a TH and another S, more or less. It's right up there with "squirrel" on the list of English words that trip up nonnatives. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5567 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 14 05 December 2012 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just go back to my London roots and say monfs or smifs. It makes things easier :-)
More seriously, in my 20s I decided give myself self-elocution lessons using a video camera and these words were difficult words to transform from my natural Estuary English to RP. I used to make up sentences that had words with a lot of -ths endings and say them over and over again until they stuck. Edited by Elexi on 05 December 2012 at 3:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bradley326 Groupie Joined 6178 days ago 78 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Kazakh, Spanish | Message 7 of 14 05 December 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm an ESL teacher who largely teaches Russian-speaking students. For them the word "months" is almost impossible to pronounce correctly unless they really focus and force the sounds. Even for my Russian-speaking teacher colleagues, all of whom speak English at an extremely high level, generally say it more like "month-ez". It is quite a tricky sound combination for lots of people. Edited by Bradley326 on 05 December 2012 at 4:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5383 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 14 05 December 2012 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh crap -- getting any Japanese person to say "squirrel" guarantees you the best time you had in a while. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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