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Top 10 Mispronounced English Words

Hello and welcome to English with Lucy.

Now, if this is your first time visiting my channel then let me just introduce myself. I am an English teacher from England and I teach English as a foreign language.

Now I’ve already done a video on 10 words that non-native speakers tend to pronounce incorrectly and today I’m going to talking about 10 words that native speakers pronounce incorrectly. So if you’re a native English speaker then keep watching the video and see if there are any that you didn’t know that you were pronouncing incorrectly. When I did the research for this video, I really surprised myself because there was a word that I use quite a lot that I, up until today, have been pronouncing incorrectly.

Non-native speakers, you are more than welcome as well just to generally improve your pronunciation and practise your listening with me here. Disclaimer, you can pronounce the words however you want. I really do not mind. I also know that there are many differences between British English and American English and other English and I’m not saying that American English is wrong. My channel is about British English so that’s what I’m talking about today. I actually think that American English can be more logical at times so well done Webster.

Now the first word on my list, there are 10 in total, is this one. Yes, it’s not really a word. It’s a letter, but it has been pronounced incorrectly so many times by so many native speakers and I must say I was a culprit when I was younger.

I used to say this incorrectly. It should be pronounced H, H. But a lot of people pronounce it H, H. Now it does make more sense to pronounce the letter that makes the h sound with the h sound at the beginning of it, h. But alas, that is not the official way. Now no one’s going to get cross with you if you pronounce it incorrectly, but originally, in the 19th century, words like herb, hotel and hospital were pronounced erb, otel, and ospital.

And then it was a battle of the classes, and then we started pronouncing the h on everything and now the breathy h is a big part of the English, of the British English language. Now you might notice that Americans do actually still pronounce herb, erb. There are two accepted pronunciations. You can say both herb and erb in America. Now the next one is something that I eat for breakfast most mornings which is, yeah I know. This for breakfast? It gives me a lot of energy. This is pronounced salmon but a lot of native speakers say salmon but it should be salmon, but salmon. So the L in salmon is silent. Moving on to number three, this one, much the same, almond, shouldn’t be pronounced almond. The L again is silent.

Then we have the word that I found out that I had been pronouncing incorrectly. So the word is, number four, this one. How would you say it? Go on, say it aloud, no one’s listening. It should be pronounced with three syllables. Mischievous, but up until today, I have always pronounced it mischievous with four syllables. Now I phoned up one of my friends who coincidentally speaks Spanish and I asked her, how would you pronounce a word for naughty that begins with m, and she said mala.

(laughs) Which I found quite funny but no, I talked to my friends and they all pronounced it mischievous as well. I did some research on this and for the majority of under 35s, this is the way that we pronounce mischievous. So I wonder whether the word will evolve and mischievous will become accepted but really, it’s not in the spelling, so I wonder where that came from. Now the next one is something that I often hear pronounced incorrectly, but it’s such a tiny tiny mistake.

Some people pronounce this word et cetera. Et cetera with an x like et cetera. Or et cetera, et cetera but it should be et cetera. Now the next one, number six, Italians, this is for you. All the coffee lovers will know this. It’s not expresso, it’s espresso, espresso. There is no x in there. We’ve got it mixed up with the word express. So make sure you remember that one next time you order a coffee. Now the next one is another case of extra syllables being added in.

This one is just two syllables but many people pronounce it with three. It should be athlete, athlete. But many natives will say athlete, athlete. So remember, two syllables, not three. Now the next one is my personal favourite on this list. It is this one and for all the non-natives, it might seem quite obvious that it’s pronounced specifically. Specifically, but some people do say pacifically so they get the wrong spelling as well and the wrong pronunciation. So, I guess pacifically comes from the pacific ocean, I’m not sure but people have heard it, written it down wrong and a couple of people, not many, will say pacifically instead of specifically.

Now the next one, number nine, this one. Now this is a word that I hear Americans pronounce incorrectly more often than the British. I don’t want to cause any rivalry there. We have our faults, I know we have our faults. We add in extra us and we have funny spellings. Now this should be, for British, ask, and for Americans, ask. But there are a few people that will say axe.

Now it is a notoriously difficult combination of phonemes the sk together so they just forget the first s sound and say axe. Now the last one, the popular super food, not quinoa, as I called it for quite a long time. It’s actually pronounced, quinoa, but how would you know this by looking at it.

I had no idea, quinoa. I feel a bit ridiculous saying quinoa. It sounds too posh but yes, not quinoa, or quinoa, quinoa. Alright guys, so that was my list of 10 words that native speakers sometimes, quite often, pronounce incorrectly so you learned the one that I pronounce incorrectly, mischievous, not mischievous, I must remember that. And maybe you learned something too.