I'd Hate to Have to Learn English

People like Harmony who like linguistics and history can tell you about the history embedded in the pronunciation of the English language. That's not my area of expertise,; I'm just hear to illustrate a few examples on how arbitrary English pronunciation is. Consider the following sentences.

Example 1: The blood of my brood tastes good. (try to ignore the content and focus on the sounds)

Here we have the "oo" making three different sounds! The first "oo" makes a short "u," like "uh." The second one acts more like it's supposed to and makes an ooooooo sound. As for the "oo" in "good," I don't find any good way to spell out the pronunciation difference. As a mood lifting exercise, pronounce all oo's the exact same way.

Example 2: The second thesis was written unto thee.

I don't know how you're supposed to know which "th" sound to make, especially considering that "thesis" begins with "the," which by itself is pronounced quite differently than the first three letters of the former. But I suppose if you're learning English, you will quickly learn how to pronounce the stand-alone "the."

Also notice the different sounds that the e's make in the second example:

• The - "uh", or sometimes "ee"


• second - "eh"


• thesis - "eee"


• written - similar to the "oo" in good.


• thee - same sound as in thesis.

Here are a few other words which might pose a problem to a learner of English:

• Tuesday (toosday)


• Wednesday (wensday, how are you supposed to know not to pronounce random letters in the middle of the word???)


• Capernaum (cuh-per-nee-uhm is the pronunciation I hear frequently)


• though - thorough - rough (th's, gh's pronounced differently)

I'm surprised more English learners don't sound like total fools when they're starting off, although maybe I just don't hear them in those stages. I'm glad I learned English before I recognized how convoluted and arbitrary it is.