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loufetoday at 5:39 PM2 repliesview on HN

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".


Replies

nuancebydefaulttoday at 7:52 PM

The most fascinating i find the pronunciation of 'women'. Of the word, i mean.

show 1 reply
pixelhaustoday at 6:07 PM

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.