Wojciech Kałuża
A
What it's like to learn English as a foreign language:
😄 bound
😄 found
😄 hound
😄 mound
😄 pound
😄 round
😄 sound
🤯 wound 🤕
😄 wound 🧵
01:00 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Laura Belknap
A
In response to Wojciech Kałuża.
Then there's always:
rough
through
trough
though
thought
plough
ought
Are there more?
01:50 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Wojciech Kałuża
A
In response to Laura Belknap.
Yep, I had the through-though-trough triple in my notes for later as well.

Personally, I'll never get over how "pronounce" has that "ou" in it, but "pronunciation" doesn't.
01:53 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Jessica A
A
In response to Wojciech Kałuża.
My kids were in a dual language program for Kindergarten-8th grade, learning Spanish and English at the same time. The number of times we had to say “I don’t know why it’s that way in English”… 😂 They could see the two languages side by side and found our English rules so confusing!
01:14 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Wojciech Kałuża
A
In response to Jessica A.
I'm so thankful I was taught as a kid and got to bypass having to actually learn the rules. The horror. 😬

A side-effect of learning this way is that it had some blind spots and, for example, I didn't learn that I had been pronouncing "leopard" wrong all my life until I was in my twenties. 😆
01:20 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Nancy M
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In response to Wojciech Kałuża.
I taught EFL for many years, and for things like that, when students asked, "Why?", the answer was usually, "Just because". Explaining kn works was also fun. I got use to "Who's k-nocking at the door?"
01:06 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Wojciech Kałuża
A
In response to Nancy M.
"Just because" is a fine answer. One can research these things back to the Middle Ages, but who has time?

I started collecting absurdities like that as a teen. It was an outlet: we had to learn English perfectly, while the average Brit writes "could of" and "here here". It got on my nerves. 😆
01:15 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Sabine
A
In response to Wojciech Kałuża.
ha! It´s not only the vowels. I implore you to pronounce Happisburgh correctly. Or Towcester.
01:03 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Wojciech Kałuża
A
In response to Sabine.
I know, I have a bunch of such collections, I'll share them eventually when the mood strikes me.

I used to live in England. Their place names are indeed otherworldly.
01:07 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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Nancy M
A
In response to Sabine.
I live in VA and outsiders always hesitate when hearing us say the city of Norfolk
01:09 PM - Apr 18, 2023
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