Things your other half says

[Noggin]

Nearly as funny as an English person trying to pronounce Reims. Or to get a French person to say squirrel. Or a Spanish person to say Skype (it sounds like they say e-Skype: the top left key on the keyboard).

Reims is something like Raze (as in razor) isn't it?

Troyes is another one - Trois!


But yes. Really funny seeing a French try to say squirrel. But when I play that game I lose Immatriculation, hôpitalisation and chirurgien/chirurgie to name just a few. But then I get words back to front in English so HTF I speak French I have no idea!! LOL Par Cark is now normal vocab in our family, along with many others I can't remember anymore!! LOL

[Druid]

With me, it's often a case of (mis)pronunciation. My wife is from the Philippines and has an excellent command of the English language, but pronunciation does catch her out occasionally.

Can you imagine how difficult it must be for a Filipina to pronounce Dun Laoghaire...? It reduced me to tears (of laughter) I'm ashamed to say.

In fairness, it's funny listening to English people pronounce it.

Indeed. It's almost as funny as hearing English folk trying to pronounce Welsh place names.

It's not funny, it's bloody annoying. Most English people will at least try to pronounce French/Spanish/etc correctly, but mispronounce a Welsh place name and just shrug it off, or make a joke of it. If I can get Loughborough right, you can at least make an effort with Llanelli.

Welsh is pronounced how it's spelled, unlike Scots and Irish gaelic whose spelling bears no resemblance to its pronunciation

[Yorick]

In fairness, it's funny listening to English people pronounce it.

Indeed. It's almost as funny as hearing English folk trying to pronounce Welsh place names.

It's not funny, it's bloody annoying. Most English people will at least try to pronounce French/Spanish/etc correctly, but mispronounce a Welsh place name and just shrug it off, or make a joke of it. If I can get Loughborough right, you can at least make an effort with Llanelli.

99% of the English speaking world would get it wrong.
100% of the English speaking world wouldn't care

[Mussels]

In fairness, it's funny listening to English people pronounce it.

Indeed. It's almost as funny as hearing English folk trying to pronounce Welsh place names.

It's not funny, it's bloody annoying. Most English people will at least try to pronounce French/Spanish/etc correctly, but mispronounce a Welsh place name and just shrug it off, or make a joke of it. If I can get Loughborough right, you can at least make an effort with Llanelli.

Welsh is pronounced how it's spelled, unlike Scots and Irish gaelic whose spelling bears no resemblance to its pronunciation

I put a lot of effort into pronouncing Welsh words properly when I was younger, it was a good ice breaker with Welsh ladies. I could sit there for ten minutes and still not get it right, I didn't feel guilty as most of them couldn't pronounce my name either and I can't remember any other nationality that gets it wrong.

[Lutin]

In fairness, it's funny listening to English people pronounce it.

Indeed. It's almost as funny as hearing English folk trying to pronounce Welsh place names.

It's not funny, it's bloody annoying. Most English people will at least try to pronounce French/Spanish/etc correctly, but mispronounce a Welsh place name and just shrug it off, or make a joke of it. If I can get Loughborough right, you can at least make an effort with Llanelli.

Welsh is pronounced how it's spelled, unlike Scots and Irish gaelic whose spelling bears no resemblance to its pronunciation

One thing that sticks in my memory is giving directions to visitors - or more accurately trying to give directions to visitors. The biggest problem being that you had to try and work out where they were trying to get to - talk about lateral thinking. Then you had to try and work out how to direct them to where you thought they wanted to go. At least with Bangor, Holyhead, Caernarfon and Rhyl you had a chance of being right.

[Druid]

British people are notoriously bad at pronouncing places, like Dubai (they call it Joobai - it's Doobai) and Nassau (they pronounce it Nass-oww - it's Nass-ore).

The Canadians are worse though, they actually spell every letter, so Keswick is literally Kes-wick, instead of Kes-sick.

I'm not so bad with Welsh places, it's a bit like Arabic in some ways, you have to make sounds like you're regurgitating food.

Yeah, Arabic and Welsh both use sounds that you just don't get in English, the "ch" sound that's made at the back of the mouth is a prime example.

[Noggin]

Yeah, Arabic and Welsh both use sounds that you just don't get in English, the "ch" sound that's made at the back of the mouth is a prime example.

This is one of the things I'm learning about French. You have to shape your mouth (and tongue) differently to make the correct sounds in French to English. It can be pretty entertaining trying to get it right

Oh, and the R's!! Damn the sodding R's. I was taught that R's are 'rolled', so that multiple R noise is made with the tongue. Which I could never do

Nope. It's in your throat!! Soooooo much easier!!

But, trying to say one of the guy's in rehab's name took me a couple of weeks - Engeurran cracked it in the end, but Sérge, Pierre and Rémi were sooooooo much easier to say!!

Mind you, no one here can say Smixxy easily - I'm now Smeeeexzy

[Horse]

Smeeeexzy

Bless you!

[Noggin]

Smeeeexzy

Bless you!

Merci!! But yes. It's funny hearing it said like after I've been to the uk for a week!! LOL But definitely better than Schmidtzy that one guy used when I first came over!! A few just can't be arsed with the complicated bit and I'm Mitsy!! LOL

[Skub]

Smeeeexzy

Bless you!

Merci!! But yes. It's funny hearing it said like after I've been to the uk for a week!! LOL But definitely better than Schmidtzy that one guy used when I first came over!! A few just can't be arsed with the complicated bit and I'm Mitsy!! LOL

Ogri's missus?

[Noggin]

Bless you!

Merci!! But yes. It's funny hearing it said like after I've been to the uk for a week!! LOL But definitely better than Schmidtzy that one guy used when I first came over!! A few just can't be arsed with the complicated bit and I'm Mitsy!! LOL

Ogri's missus?

I doubt the people that call me that know of Mitzi!! LOL But I did have her painted on my pink blackbird!!!

[Jody]

Yeah, Arabic and Welsh both use sounds that you just don't get in English, the "ch" sound that's made at the back of the mouth is a prime example.

This is one of the things I'm learning about French. You have to shape your mouth (and tongue) differently to make the correct sounds in French to English. It can be pretty entertaining trying to get it right

Oh, and the R's!! Damn the sodding R's. I was taught that R's are 'rolled', so that multiple R noise is made with the tongue. Which I could never do

Nope. It's in your throat!! Soooooo much easier!!

But, trying to say one of the guy's in rehab's name took me a couple of weeks - Engeurran cracked it in the end, but Sérge, Pierre and Rémi were sooooooo much easier to say!!

Mind you, no one here can say Smixxy easily - I'm now Smeeeexzy

Even the best English speaking French I've encountered can't pronounce my name. It's not unusual for me to say

c'est la même chose qu'avant vendredi

it's the same as the day before Friday

= Jeudi

meh, close enough

[Wscad]

I found Mandarin hard. The tones were for me, hard to get my head round. No such thing as him, he, she, hers, his.

Cantonese was hard. More tones than Mandarin so I didn’t bother too much with it.

[Noggin]

Cos I don't have an 'other half' I'll go with responses to questions that make me laugh!! LOL

I asked on a cooking in france page if anyone was aware if it's possible to buy pure lemon juice in bottles. I don't want to have to buy loads of fresh and squeeze them each day, but I do want some pure lemon juice to add to water to drink.

Various replies, it could be in a different area of the shop than I've been looking and no I don't want all the suggestions that have lemon essential oil added

Then someone suggests a product that seems to be 'the one' and adds - "but it is very sharp and acidic"

FFS - I'd kind of expect pure lemon juice to be sharp and acidic

[Jody]

Not my other half but an Argentinian friend.....

Geo " I will stay for a couple days, but you know, I don't want to invade your space"

Jody " Pity you didn't feel that way about the Falkland Islands "

[Jody]

Cos I don't have an 'other half' I'll go with responses to questions that make me laugh!! LOL

I asked on a cooking in france page if anyone was aware if it's possible to buy pure lemon juice in bottles. I don't want to have to buy loads of fresh and squeeze them each day, but I do want some pure lemon juice to add to water to drink.

Various replies, it could be in a different area of the shop than I've been looking and no I don't want all the suggestions that have lemon essential oil added

Then someone suggests a product that seems to be 'the one' and adds - "but it is very sharp and acidic"

FFS - I'd kind of expect pure lemon juice to be sharp and acidic

Lemon juice is available in all decent sized supermarkets !! ??

[Noggin]

Cos I don't have an 'other half' I'll go with responses to questions that make me laugh!! LOL

I asked on a cooking in france page if anyone was aware if it's possible to buy pure lemon juice in bottles. I don't want to have to buy loads of fresh and squeeze them each day, but I do want some pure lemon juice to add to water to drink.

Various replies, it could be in a different area of the shop than I've been looking and no I don't want all the suggestions that have lemon essential oil added

Then someone suggests a product that seems to be 'the one' and adds - "but it is very sharp and acidic"

FFS - I'd kind of expect pure lemon juice to be sharp and acidic

Lemon juice is available in all decent sized supermarkets !! ??

It is. But most that I've found has other stuff in it - sweetener/sugar, lemon essential oil , preservatives etc etc. I just want an old fashioned bottle of pure lemon juice. Have lots of options now - and where they are likely to be in the shop!! Most seem to be in the bio section (not an area I generally go )

[Noggin]

It's not funny, it's bloody annoying. Most English people will at least try to pronounce French/Spanish/etc correctly, but mispronounce a Welsh place name and just shrug it off, or make a joke of it. If I can get Loughborough right, you can at least make an effort with Llanelli.

Welsh is pronounced how it's spelled, unlike Scots and Irish gaelic whose spelling bears no resemblance to its pronunciation

I went to a Blackbird rally at Llanelli years ago (well, we met there quite often, think we had a few more rallies there!). I spent quite a lot of time at the cafe there on the first day trying REALLY hard to say Llanelli correctly! It is quite alien to an English mouth! But apparently I pretty much got there. It's helped me a lot to say the 'r's' over here

I'd never attempt to say a Welsh word from looking at it, but if someone is willing to help me learn to pronounce it, I'm happy to give it a go

[cheb]

The other chap in the van today is a Glaswegian. Listening him trying to pronounce Worcestershire was painful.

[Count Steer]

The other chap in the van today is a Glaswegian. Listening to him was painful.

FTFY.