What is the word in English...

[jundp 191]

He says "Someglasses" instead of "sunglasses," "Bither" instead of "bother," "beer" instead of "bear." He also can't say the word "walk." It comes out more like "work."

I loove his pronunciations. I think they're so cute!

Mine says "beer" too. He also says "walley" instead of valley, or "vierd" instead of "weird." So he gets the v's and w's backwards sometimes...but not all words. My favorites are "wacuum" and ...."cloth-es". Where he pronounces the "es" at the end. It's just because that's how the words would be spoken in German, I guess.

But I love it. I think it's adorable. And if he reads this, he'll probably be embarrassed

[jundp 191]

I don't think anyone was picking on new English speakers. In fact, the OP is not a native English speaker and I believe was inspired to start this thread from a discussion in another thread about English speakers. Meant to be a lighthearted type of thread, which I think it has been! And yeah you're right, I've said a bunch of stupid sh!t in Portuguese by accident...argh it's hard.

Agreed. I am curious though, about USC experiences in speaking or attempting to speak/learn a foreign language.

Care to share some detail?

Well, I speak a little French and a lot of Spanish. I figured "Meh, how hard can it be to learn German?" Yeah. Riiiiigggghhhhtttt. I actually do pretty well at understanding when it is spoken...slowly. But my pronunciation is awful. I cannot get the umlautes at all, not matter how hard I try. And apparently, one should not repeat loudly a word used by your German girlfriends affectionately, when one is in an airport.

[Jack and Barbara 0]

"world" is kinda hard for her to say. The "r" sound in general is different than in portguese. I can't say much though because some of my portuguese has come and gone.

[Alex & Rachel 78]

Hubby gets weird looks every single time he asks for 'water'. He keeps reminding me it's not 'wadder' like we Yanks say it.

And at Starbucks, if he says 'I'd like a tall bold please' they always say WHAT? like 4 times. He'll give up & say ok, 'a drip coffee'.

I can never order water in America. I pronounce it correctly! It has a T, not a D!

I never really know what someone means when they say 'I don't pronounce my Rs'. For example, 'car' was brought up as a word. I say it caa too - but how does it sound if you pronounce the R? I can't imagine that. I'm glad English doesn't require you to roll any Rs because that is the one thing I simply cannot do. It sounds so cool, too!

Also - it took me a few years to stop muddling up shoulder and soldier, and I still mangle my pronunciation of 'comfortable' sometimes!

Edited February 29, 2008 by Alex & Rachel