# English words foreigners often get confused **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 16, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990 "2013-09-16T18:00:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/41 "2013-09-17T15:01:13Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > . . . And all this time I thought we had 5 😕 Are you counting dyptongs as vowels? > [@naita](#): > > No, he’s counting vowel sounds in speech rather than vowel letters. The vowel in book for instance doesn’t have it’s own letter, but it’s not a diphthong. And the I in bite is one vowel sound, while the I in bit is another. And then there’s the [schwa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa) sound. A lot of Americans pronounce any number of letter-vowels as schwa. (And the tanks story is hilarious.) ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/42 "2013-09-17T15:31:05Z")
I was in a English-language cooking class where several Mandarin speakers kept mixing up “soup” and “soap”. The words, not the substances, thankfully. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/43 "2013-09-17T15:32:11Z")
I’m told that Spanish (at least, Argentinian Spanish) has a long and a short version of each vowel-letter, and no others. I don’t speak any more than Sesame Street Spanish myself, though, so I can’t confirm this. ---
**Author:** ![BrianJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@BrianJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianJ)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/44 "2013-09-17T16:23:17Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > And where, pray tell, is your “Asian friend” from? East Asians commonly have trouble pronouncing the “r” sound correctly (hence the old joke “flied lice”) but I’ve never met an Asian who mispronounce it the other way. That puzzled me too. I mean, Lee is a sound in Chinese. my wife gets the chicken/kitchen thing ocasionally, plus erratic/erotic. lol Also, she is confused on the difference between wish and hope. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/45 "2013-09-17T17:56:40Z")
As I understand it, most East Asian languages have only one sound that’s somewhere in between the European L and R, and in some languages it’s closer to one, while in others it’s closer to the other. This is why basically the same word is transliterated as “lo mein” from Chinese, but as “ramen” from Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/46 "2013-09-17T18:20:28Z")
> [@Simmerdown](#): > > An Eastern European leader once spoke at a gathering (paraphrasing): “It is a pleasure to be in a room with such distinguished liars!” > > They were lawyers. So, he was actually right the first time. :dubious: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/47 "2013-09-17T18:21:58Z")
> [@sentrix](#): > > dunno. a penis can bring happyness. If course we all know, a penis is someone who plays the piano. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/48 "2013-09-17T18:31:44Z")
When I lived in Russia, many people had difficulty with the words physician and physicist. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/49 "2013-09-17T18:36:09Z")
> [@naita](#): > > No, he’s counting vowel sounds in speech rather than vowel letters. The vowel in book for instance doesn’t have it’s own letter, but it’s not a diphthong. **Nava** is correct and she is counting vowels in speech. [Here’s an article on Spanish phonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology). Standard Spanish has only pure five vowel sounds, which can be in stressed or unstressed positions. There are six ways to write these sounds (a,e,i,o,u,y–unless I’m forgetting on.) This is not counting diphthongs and triphthongs. [Here is the IPA chart for Spanish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Spanish). You will note only five vowel sounds are listed. Contrast this with the IPA chart for [English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English), which has a crapton more vowel sounds. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/50 "2013-09-17T18:58:20Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > And the I in bite is one vowel sound, while the I in bit is another. Isn’t the I in bite a diphthong? > [@pulykamell](#): > > **Nava** is correct and she is counting vowels in speech. [Here’s an article on Spanish phonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology). My bad. I didn’t read the original statement carefully enough and my brain re-interpreted it to something that I had an answer to. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/51 "2013-09-17T19:17:06Z")
I’ve known a few people who spoke English as a second language very well except for the difference between CONsole (as in computer terminal) and conSOLE (as in, make you feel better). And I knew a poor Taiwanese girl who got “he” and “she” reversed every single time. Apparently there is no gender distinction for the equivalent pronoun in Cantonese. Still, you think she’d get it right 50% of the time just by chance. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/52 "2013-09-17T19:29:32Z")
My friend in Barcelona speaks very good English except for the word vegetable. She pronounces it _vah shetable_ (which I find humorous :p). ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/53 "2013-09-17T19:52:19Z")
To put a reverse spin on this, in my (American) Middle School French class, where my instructor would often call on a student at random to give a physical description of a celebrity or other well known person, I would almost always use “Cheval” (horse) instead of “Cheveaux” (hair). Twenty-five years later I occasionally run into her at the supermarket, she’s elderly but still sharp and she always smiles and makes the “clip-clop” sound of a horse when she sees me.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/54 "2013-09-17T20:05:25Z")
> [@naita](#): > > No, he’s counting vowel sounds in speech rather than vowel letters. The vowel in book for instance doesn’t have it’s own letter, but it’s not a diphthong. But that’s an English phoneme: he mentioned 10 Spanish vocalic ones. I only know 5. And again I’m talking about phonemes not letters. ETA: thanks, **pulykamell**. And **Chronos** , the Argentinian thing is one of its dialectal markers, it’s influence from Italian and not so much different sounds as a different way to mark stress. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/55 "2013-09-17T20:05:37Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > … I would almost always use “Cheval” (horse) instead of “Cheveaux” (hair). I continuously make that mistake as well. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/56 "2013-09-18T00:59:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **leahcim** : > > I’ve known a few people who spoke English as a second language very well except for the difference between CONsole (as in computer terminal) and conSOLE (as in, make you feel better). There are a number of English words that follow this pattern, noun with stress on the first syllable and verb with stress on the second. The only one that’s coming to mind, though, is “record”. And I of course accept the correction from all those more knowledgeable than me about Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/57 "2013-09-18T01:46:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are a number of English words that follow this pattern, noun with stress on the first syllable and verb with stress on the second. The only one that’s coming to mind, though, is “record”. > > And I of course accept the correction from all those more knowledgeable than me about Spanish. A very un-PC one is RE-tard (a stupid person) vs re-TARD (to slow something down). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/58 "2013-09-18T04:12:28Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > To put a reverse spin on this, in my (American) Middle School French class, where my instructor would often call on a student at random to give a physical description of a celebrity or other well known person, I would almost always use “Cheval” (horse) instead of “Cheveaux” (hair). Twenty-five years later I occasionally run into her at the supermarket, she’s elderly but still sharp and she always smiles and makes the “clip-clop” sound of a horse when she sees me.🙂 I once had to translate some text from English to French that included the line “the house where Balzac was born.” I came up with “la maison où Balzac est nu.” The French teacher never let me forget that one: “…and Balzac was a great, fat man – the house where he is naked – oh, my!” ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/59 "2013-09-18T05:32:34Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > I once had to translate some text from English to French that included the line “the house where Balzac was born.” I came up with “la maison où Balzac est nu.” > > The French teacher never let me forget that one: “…and Balzac was a great, fat man – the house where he is naked – oh, my!” Did you also make sure to pronounce Balzac as “Ball-sack”? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/60 "2013-09-18T10:04:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are a number of English words that follow this pattern, noun with stress on the first syllable and verb with stress on the second. The only one that’s coming to mind, though, is “record”. Wikipedia, of course, has a [giant list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial-stress-derived_noun) of them. Some are more subtle than others. _Combat_, for instance, definitely operates this way but the difference is smaller (to my ears) than _record_. I suppose one difference is that the syllables themselves change. Combat is either COM-bat or com-BAT, but record is re-CORD or REC-ord. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990.md?page=4)