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by loufe 77 days ago
I'm a native English speaker who became fluent in (québecois) french as an adult, I could not agree more. I have a better chance knowing how to pronounce a new word in french vs. English.

Doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, but it's staggering how internally inconsistently English is.For example "read" and it's famous past tense, differently pronounced "read".

Still, we've got a couple fun ones au Québec, like betterave "bet-rav" caught me off guard or gruau "gree-au".

2 comments

The most fascinating i find the pronunciation of 'women'. Of the word, i mean.
The famous ghoti as an alternate spelling for fish. Gh like in enough O like in women Ti like in nation
Gruau would be closer to grew-oh, if it helps.

There's the classic squirrel/écureuil situation where the French word is hard to pronounce for English-speakers, and the English word is hard for French-speakers.

Loving my bilingual spot of the world.