Hadar Shemesh breaks down why native English speakers mispronounce words like Chihuahua, Yosemite, and manslaughter. English spelling doesn't match how words sound, so stress, schwa sounds, and vowel reductions trip everyone up. Mispronunciations are learning moments, not failures.
Chapters
Do you know this trend on TikTok and Instagram pronounced incorrectly one time and it still haunts you to this day. I love all the responses and all the funny mispronunciations and today I prepared a short lesson with a clear explanation as to how to pronounce each of the mispronounced words by native speakers. Hi everyone. If you're new to my channel, my name is Hadar. I'm a non native speaker of English and I am here to help you speak English with clarity, confidence and freedom. Check out my website for a lot of free lessons on pronunciation, fluency and mindset@hadar shemesh.com and of course, follow me on social media for daily lessons. Let's start with the first one. Hepatitis Hepatitis he schwa Thai, not tea Thai. Primary stress, this flap. T schwa and an S. Hepatitis Hepatitis. Chihuahua. Chihuahua. So the primary stress is on the second syllable Chihuahua Schwa at the end.
Paradigm. Paradigm.
Paradigm. Paradigm. No G. Why does it have a f ing G? There is no G. Paradigm. Paradigm.
Fatigue. Fatigue.
Fatigue. Fuh schwa Teague. Primary stress is on the second syllable. Fatigue. Stomach arches.
Yosemite. Or Yosemite, if you don't make the t A flap yo se me in American pronunciation, Yosemite.
Because it's supposed to be Yosemite, not Yosemite. Arkansas.
Arkansas. Ar kin saw Arkansas Because Kansas is Kansas.
So how come all of a sudden ar Kansas is Arkansas? And last but not least, Connecticut. Because it's supposed to be Connecticut, not Connecticut.
Connecticut. Connecticut. Connecticut. See, the problem is that English is not a phonetic language, so you pretty often can't figure out how to pronounce a word unless you've heard it several times. These people are native speakers and they mispronounce these words because they weren't exposed to them, or maybe they haven't paid attention and and they applied other common spelling pattern pronunciations that were not exactly the right pronunciation for these words. And this is why they mispronounce these words. What I love about it is that they are so laid back about it and I'm sure they were embarrassed about it. But also, it is what it is. You don't have to pay a high price for mispronouncing words. And for all the non native speakers, and I'm assuming most of you are non native speakers watching my videos and know that it can happen to native speakers as well. So it's not a big deal if you mispronounce a word here and there. Clarity is important, but mispronunciations are a natural part of the evolution of a language in your mouth as long as you learn from it and you correct it when you can. Let's listen to a few more Arbo elbow L U dark L L elbow elbow Literally looked at a hoarding and said chows chaos chaos chaos man's laughter manslaughter man slaughter flap t manslaughter man's.
Laughter manslaughter 15 to 20 for laughing.
All right, that's it. These are all the mispronunciations that we have for today. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe you've learned something from it. In the meantime, let me know in the comments what is one word that you mispronounced and it still haunts you till this day? I can't wait to hear it. I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
