Hard English Words to Pronounce/Read for Non-Native Speakers?

What English words are hard to pronounce/read for non-native English speakers?

My contribution:
"Choir" (especially for native French speakers).
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Last edited by bwam#7637 on May 18, 2020, 1:48:17 PM
Last bumped on May 26, 2020, 11:58:29 AM
when i've been in britain during university times, living in swansea i had huge problems with their city names like aberystwyth, carmarthen, llanelli

on the other hand, after understanding the welsh (amazing folks btw), it's not far to understand the scots too.

everytime i need to refresh my mood i start google maps and browse scottish cities and areas and try to pronounce them.
the scots are also a very warm and welcoming folks, at least to europeans the english don't like very much.

when it comes to the states, best example is watching "no country for old men", the texas accent always gets me and i need english subtitles
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Last edited by cronus#1461 on May 18, 2020, 6:10:12 PM
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious :^)
Last edited by Exile009#1139 on May 18, 2020, 6:46:07 PM
"Rural."

But it largely depends on your L1.
Wash your hands, Exile!
laughter and hubby

Every time i read/here those i try to pronounce it with an entangled tongue and see pictures of overweight people.
So, English has a metric crapton of hard-to-pronounce words, but some of the hardest are loan words, like Wednesday which I often hear pronounced like Weddings' Day w/o the G.

Or Taco which gets mangled into tack-o. Piano gets it's vowels changed to a y. A food Buffet retains it's foreign pronunciation for many learners, like boo-fet for Mexicans and B(y)eu-feh' for Quebecoises.

And then there are these other words that are hard for me so I know foreigners are gonna have issues with like amalgam, buttress, concordance, infinitesimal, irate, comeuppance, etc.
Sarcophagus
~ I have selective hearing, and today, you have not been selected.

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