If you can say these 15 Words correctly, your English pronunciation is AMAZING!

Hello, lovely students, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Can you pronounce this word here?

What about that one?

Do you know that one?

Today, I'm going to test your

pronunciation skills with 15 words that often leave people puzzled and with their

tongues in knots.

Basically, if you know how to pronounce

these 15 words, your English pronunciation is amazing!

Now, many factors can make a word tricky to say.

Maybe the word contains a sound or sounds that don't exist in your first language.

Perhaps the spelling pattern breaks the rules, or the word might just have lots

of consonant sounds together.

Maybe it's just ridiculously long,

requiring your mouth muscles to work extra hard.

I've prepared a selection of some of the most challenging English words so that

you can really put your knowledge and skills to the test, and get some great

pronunciation practice too.

As always, there's a free PDF and

exercise pack that goes with this video.

We have 15 super hard words in this

video, and I've added 15 more in the PDF.

There are pronunciation activities and

audios as well, so you can really master them and test yourself.

If you'd like to download that, just click on the link in the description box

or scan the QR code here, enter your name and email address. You sign up to my

mailing list, and the PDF and exercise pack link will arrive directly in your inbox.

After that, you've joined the PDF club, you will automatically receive my free

weekly PDFs alongside my news, course updates, and offers.

It's free, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Another important notice, remember that

there's usually more than one way to pronounce a word.

I'm going to model my pronunciation of each word.

I speak with modern RP, yours will sound different, and that's fine.

What matters most is that listeners can recognise and understand the word.

There are 15 words in total, let me know your score out of 15 in the comments section.

Okay, let's begin.

Word number 1. How do you pronounce this?

/ˈbruːəri/, /ˈbruːəri/, /ˈbruːəri/—'The brewery specialises in producing alcohol-free beers.'

So 'a brewery' is a place that makes beer, the word has two /r/ sounds close together.

And /r/ is a challenging sound, and many children often replace it with /w/ when

they're learning English, so 'rabbit' is often pronounced 'wabbit,' which is really sweet.

My top tip for pronouncing the /r/ sound accurately, make sure your tongue doesn't

touch the top of your mouth.

Number 2, and I'm going to admit, this

is something that I am, and it's something that I struggle to pronounce.

How do you pronounce this word?

/ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː/, /ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː/.

'Entrepreneur', I don't get it right every time, I'm sure you can find an interview

with me out there mispronouncing it.

'Sylvia is an entrepreneur who started

their own tech company.'

'An entrepreneur' is a person who runs

their own business, and just like with 'brewery', it has a couple of /r/ sounds to

wrap your tongue around.

Make sure you stress the  last syllable, entrepreNEUR.

This word has French origins. In fact, you'll notice that quite a few of the

challenging words in this video are words that we've borrowed from other languages.

Let's move on to number 3. How do you pronounce this word?

/ˈkiːnwɑː/, /ˈkiːnwɑː/—'That quinoa and avocado salad was delicious.'

'Quinoa' is a healthy grain that's rich in fibre and protein.

I remember I used to pronounce this word /kiˈnəʊə/ and people would tell me, it's

not /kiˈnəʊə/, Lucy, it's /ˈkiːnwɑː/.

So, I "corrected" my pronunciation, but it

turns out both pronunciations  are totally acceptable.

Another reason this word is so tricky,

well, most 'qu' words are pronounced /kw/, like 'quick' and 'require', but here, the

letters 'qu' are pronounced /k/, /ˈkiːnwɑː/.

Okay, number 4. How do you pronounce

this word?

This word exhausts me just looking at it,

/ˌmiːtiərəˈlɒdʒɪkl/, /ˌmiːtiərəˈlɒdʒɪkl/.

'The meteorological data showed that 2023

was the hottest year on record.'

'Meteorological' is an adjective connected

to the weather.

This word is really hard for me to say.

There are seven syllables to get your mouth around—/ˌmiːtiərəˈlɒdʒɪkl/.

With long words like this, it can be helpful to break the word down into

individual syllables and then slowly build up,  

mee-tee-uh-ruh-LOJ-uh-kuhl—/ˌmiːtiərəˈlɒdʒɪkl/.

How do you pronounce this word?

I often hear this mispronounced, /lɑːft/,

/lɑːft/—just one syllable there.

'I thought my joke was pretty funny, but

nobody laughed.'

The verb 'laugh' confuses many of us as the

letters 'gh' are pronounced /f/, just like in the words 'enough', 'cough', and 'rough.'

/f/ is an unvoiced consonant, so when we add the letters -ed to form the past

simple and past participle, we add the unvoiced /t/ sound, /lɑːft/, /lɑːft/.

Blending /f/ and /t/ together can be difficult at first /ft/—/lɑːft/.

If you said /læft/ with the short vowel sound /æ/, that's totally correct too.

Lots of places in Northern England, or in Bath and Somerset, they would say /læft/

rather than /lɑːft/.

Okay, number 6. How do you pronounce

this word here?

It should be /ɪnˈdaɪt/, /ɪnˈdaɪt/.

'The grand jury decided to indict the CEO on charges of fraud.'

If you 'indict' somebody, you charge them with committing a crime.

It's a legal term, and it's more commonly used in North America.

Now, I'd forgive you for pronouncing the word /ɪnˈdɪkt/.

That is naturally how one wants to pronounce it upon reading that word, but

the letter 'c' here is actually silent, and we just have the /aɪ/ sound followed by the

/t/ sound—/ɪnˈdaɪt/.

Number 7—how do you pronounce this word?

It should be /ˈæθliːt/, /ˈæθliːt/.

'She's a world-famous athlete who won a

silver medal in the last Olympics.'

Did you manage to pronounce the /θ/ sound?

This sound and the voiced version /ð/ don't exist in many languages,

and many native speakers  struggle with these sounds too,

and some accents replace them all together

with sounds that are easier to pronounce.

For example, it's common to hear

people say /ˈæfliːt/ or even /ˈætliːt/.

The word is still recognizable.

Okay, number 8. How do you pronounce this word?

It's /ˈʒɒnrə/, /ˈʒɒnrə/.

'What genre of music do you like?'

'Genre' means type or style and the word 

begins with a sound that we  don't use so much—/ʒ/, /ʒ/.

If you struggle to make it, try and make this sound, 'shh', 'shh', keep the same mouth

shape and tongue position, but add voice, add vibration—'shh,' /ʒ/.

There, you've got it.

Number 9—how do you pronounce this word?

It should be /ˈɪnfəməs/,

/ˈɪnfəməs/.

'Jack the Ripper was infamous for his crimes.'

Now, did you say 'inFAmous', 'inFAmous'?

I don't blame you.

It totally confused me as a child as well.

I have a strong memory of standing up to read out in class and saying 'inFAmous'.

Luckily, the teacher was very sweet with me and corrected me nicely, so I don't

have any trauma with this word.

The word looks like the opposite of

famous, but it isn't.

If you're infamous, you're famous for a

bad reason.

We stress the first syllable and the

other vowel sounds become the weak schwa sound /ə/—/ˈɪnfəməs/, /ˈɪnfəməs/.

Okay, number 10. I struggle with this word.

How do you pronounce it?

It should be /ɪnˈdjuːbɪtəbli/—'It's indubitably one of the finest hotels in

the world.'

Now, 'indubitably' means  without a doubt, undoubtedly.

In British English, we put a /j/ sound 

before the /uː/, /ɪnˈdjuːbɪtəbli/  or /ɪnˈdʒuːbɪtəbli/.

I favour /ɪnˈdʒuːbɪtəbli/.

This /j/ sound is often dropped in North

American accents.

Okay, number 11, a long one.

How do you pronounce this word?

It should be /ɪnˌvaɪrənˈmentəlɪzəm/,  /ɪnˌvaɪrənˈmentəlɪzəm/.

'Environmentalism has risen in popularity in recent years.'

Now, 'environmentalism' refers to concern for the environment and how we can help

people protect it.

Many people find it tricky to pronounce

the /ɪzəm/ at the end, and did you place the stress correctly?

EnvironMENtalism.

It's also very common to drop the /n/ sound

before the /m/, especially when you're speaking fast, 'environmentalism.'

Time for number 12, this one is shorter.

Can you pronounce it?

It's /aɪˈəʊtə/, /aɪˈəʊtə/.

'That's not going to help me one iota!'

An 'iota' is a very small amount, but we only use it in negative sentences.

There are quite a few vowel sounds for such a short word.

/aɪ/ as in 'eye', /əʊ/ like in 'no',  

and then the /ə/ at the end, 'iota.'

I say /aɪˈəʊtə/, many Americans say /aɪˈoʊdə/ with more of a 'd' than a 't.'

It's not quite a full 'd' sound, though, it's a flap 't', /aɪˈoʊdə/, /aɪˈoʊdə/.

Rachel's English has a really good video on the flap 't' if you're interested in

learning more about it.

She focuses more on American  English pronunciation.

Okay, we're nearing the end now, so let's move things up a gear.

How do you pronounce this date?

Technically, it should be /ðə twelfθ əv  ˈfebruəri /, but I don't pronounce it like that.

I say 'the 12th of /ˈfebjəri /, 12th /ˈfebjəri /.

I'm a proud mispronouncer.

'Her birthday is on the 12th of February.'

We've got three consonants to blend together here, to say 'twelth', /l/, /f/, and

/θ/, but the good news is we can just drop the /f/ to make things a little bit

easier, /twelθ/, /twelθ/.

/twelfθ/ is such a mouthful.

As we saw earlier, many speakers find /θ/ difficult to pronounce, and so some drop

that instead, /twelf/, /twelf/.

Some people say /ˈfebruəri/, but there are

so many ways to pronounce this word. I find it easier to drop the first /r/ and

put a /j/ before the /u/ instead,  Feb-yuh-ree, Feb-yuh-ree.

Okay, number 14 is actually a Greek word,

but we use it all the time in English because it's a delicious dip made from

yoghurt and cucumber.

How do you pronounce this  word—/tsatˈsiːki/, /tsatˈsiːki/?

'We ordered a Greek platter with tzatziki, olives and pitta.'

Now, that /ts/, /ts/, /ts/, consonant cluster at the beginning is so hard for me to

pronounce, and it helps if I just say 'sat' first and then add on the t, 'tsat.'

You will hear a lot of people saying /tatˈsiːki/, /tatˈsiːki/ in the UK, but I think

it should be /tsatˈsiːki/.

My apologies to all Greek speakers out

there if we are ruining the word.

Okay, let's get onto number 15, how do

you say this word?

I love this word, by the  way—/ˈskwɪrəld/, /ˈskwɪrəld/.

'My grandma has money squirrelled away in all sorts of strange places.'

If you squirrel money away, you save it or store it like a squirrel does, but

with nuts, obviously, hopefully not money, that's the last thing we need.

Did you manage to wrap your tongue and 

lips around the /skw/,  /skw/, /skw/, 'squirrelled'?

Right, that brings us to the end of today's video.

Let me know how many of the 15 words you knew and were able to successfully pronounce.

You have 15 more super hard words in the PDF and exercise pack that goes with this

lesson, and you can download that for free, just click on the link in the

description box or scan the QR code here.

If you like learning with me here on

YouTube, you will love learning with me in my courses.

I have my Beautiful British English B1, B2 and C1 Programmes, they all have a

strong focus on pronunciation and we also have a really intense comprehensive

pronunciation course, that's the Beautiful British English Pronunciation Programme.

All of the information about these programmes is at englishwithlucy.com,

you can scan the QR code here if you wish, and if you use the code YOUTUBE15,

you get 15% off.

I'll leave that with you, it would be

lovely to have you in there, I think you'd really enjoy them.

I will see you in another lesson!

Muah!