08
Mar 08the english language
Interesting quick post by Daron Bauman on Kottke,
about the difficulty of the english language
Four words that prove how difficult the English language is: lose, loose, chose, choose.
Update: Doug points out more: bough, cough, dough, rough, through.
being a non native english speaking person (I’m italian and we’re known as not the best english speakers on the globe),
I found myself facing one of the words that I think belongs to the longest list of this kind.
the word is “steak”, and in amsterdam there’s plenty of “steak houses”.
we italians end up asking for something that is closer to “stick” than “steak”.
we tend to pronounce the “ea” group as it is in the word “weak”.
this list of words is my favorite as it takes to our concerns
- stake > OK
- skate > OK
- wake > OK
- weak > OK
- break > can live with it but…
- steak > ???
damn you, english language!
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