# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/121 "2013-09-28T22:57:16Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > Yes. Heck, it’s not only learners who have this problem. I watched _House MD_, and couldn’t easily tell whether his boss was Lisa Cutty or Lisa Cuddy. The way they’re pronounced by many Americans, they sound the same to me. In most English language dialects I’m aware of, the voiced plosives (/d/ /b/ /g/) at the ends of stressed syllables frequently have the effect of lengthening the vowel, which remains lengthened even after intervocalic /d/ has evolved into the flap. In terms of what sounds neutral or unaccented to me, this makes “feudal” and “ladder” sound different from “futile” and “latter”. At the same time, I can’t help noticing that it’s practically impossible to confuse most of these word-pairs in context, either because the two words are from different parts of speech (“ladder”, “latter”), or else one or both words comes up in limited specialized contexts (“feudal”, “futile”). I’ve noticed that German learners of English often have trouble with the vowel sound in words like “club” or “Cuddy”; and may pronounce it more like their own O-umlaut. Another one that often gives them trouble is terminal “l”, as in “full”, “roll” or “Al”. It’s been ages since I spent much time among native German speakers, but when I did it seemed like those two were always the last English sounds they needed to learn, long after they’d already mastered all the other phonetic peculiarities of English like “th”, /z/ at the ends of words, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/122 "2013-09-28T23:18:16Z")
Well, I didn’t read all this thread, but I’m familiar with the “kitchen/chicken” mistake from West Africa. One I heard quite a bit was sheet/shit. When my secretary in Portugal asked me a question about a document being on a “fool shit”, I had to puzzle over it for a bit before replying. I finally realized some time later that a romance language speaker is going to see the word ‘shit’ as being pronounced ‘sheet’, so would likely say ‘sheet’ sort of like ‘shit’. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/123 "2013-09-29T02:37:55Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’ve noticed that German learners of English often have trouble with the vowel sound in words like “club” or “Cuddy”; and may pronounce it more like their own O-umlaut. That’s a sound that Thais and a lot of other peoples over here have trouble with too. (They tend to give it the short-O sound in “top.”) We don’t really ever think of it as something tricky specific to English, but it largely seems to be. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/124 "2013-09-29T04:07:37Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Well, I didn’t read all this thread, but I’m familiar with the “kitchen/chicken” mistake from West Africa. One I heard quite a bit was sheet/shit. When my secretary in Portugal asked me a question about a document being on a “fool shit”, I had to puzzle over it for a bit before replying. I finally realized some time later that a romance language speaker is going to see the word ‘shit’ as being pronounced ‘sheet’, so would likely say ‘sheet’ sort of like ‘shit’. That’s not limited to Romance languages, actually. It’s linked to what **Chronos** said about Spanish but which got derailed by the question of “how many vocalic phonemes does Spanish have”: speakers of a language which doesn’t include those two sounds will tend to hear and pronounce them as the one their native language has (which seems to be /i/ most often, but IANAL, just someone who’s been fascinated with languages since age 6). This includes for example [Japanese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Japanese), which has two “i” sounds but they’re not the same two as English. It’s also the reason speakers of languages which have /z/ but not /θ/ or /d/ but not /ð/ will conflate them; there’s of course other pairs. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/125 "2013-09-29T16:30:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > a Gunny is not the same as an Artillery Sergeant but the same as a _Brigada_[…]The specific correct translations would vary depending on which army is being used as a reference, but the butchering applies everywhere. Such as that first example, that applies specifically to Spain’s armies (in Latin America that post IS one or another flavor of “sargento”). But yes, the observation is correct, as my hometown newspaper exemplifies continuously: \* El Nuevo Día\* will have absolutely no consistent editorial policy on how you translate a whole bunch of terms (military, political, mechanical, geographic and others); if their only source is in another language they’ll do a mechanical translation of each part of the term, or else cut-and-paste straight from Spain/Mexico/Argentina/Colombia sources resulting in a mishmash of terminology from the whole Iberosphere (I blame this on that there’s a lot of insecurity as to whether we are “saying it right” or have been corrupted by Anglo influences). The tricky ones are the false cognates. “_Compromiso_” in Spanish is **commitment** in English. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/126 "2013-09-29T16:35:57Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Such as that first example, that applies specifically to Spain’s armies (in Latin America that post IS one or another flavor of “sargento”). So is _Brigada_. The whole mouthful which I hadn’t wanted to post is _Sargento de Brigada de Infantería de Marina_ (if it’s the Spanish marines) or _Sangento de Brigada de Marines_ (if it’s the American ones). A _Coronel de Brigada_ would be called _Coronel_, a _Capitán de Brigada_ would be called _Capitán_… the one who gets abbreviated by the same name as a unit is the sarge (perhaps linked to sergeants being more common than colonels and captains). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/127 "2013-09-30T23:04:48Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > So is _Brigada_. The whole mouthful which I hadn’t wanted to post is _Sargento de Brigada de Infantería de Marina_ (if it’s the Spanish marines) or _Sangento de Brigada de Marines_ (if it’s the American ones). > > A _Coronel de Brigada_ would be called _Coronel_, a _Capitán de Brigada_ would be called _Capitán_… the one who gets abbreviated by the same name as a unit is the sarge (perhaps linked to sergeants being more common than colonels and captains). And even then we would never really match it exactly since US vs. Spanish forces do not really use the same relative structure (NATO OR classes nothwitstanding). Which is why we really need translators who’ll bother to look up such details and think them out. And not just on these but also in a whole range of areas. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/128 "2013-10-01T00:39:33Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’ve noticed that German learners of English often have trouble with the vowel sound in words like “club” or “Cuddy”; and may pronounce it more like their own O-umlaut. Another one that often gives them trouble is terminal “l”, as in “full”, “roll” or “Al”. It’s been ages since I spent much time among native German speakers, but when I did it seemed like those two were always the last English sounds they needed to learn, long after they’d already mastered all the other phonetic peculiarities of English like “th”, /z/ at the ends of words, etc. Met a couple of Austrians who were visiting the States some time back. They spoke very good English, but kept substituting ‘W’ for ‘V’ - which had me totally confused, especially since they were replacing a sound German uses with one it doesn’t! ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/129 "2013-10-01T00:43:45Z")
> [@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. Supposedly the Japanese have trouble with ‘L’ - so Marines in the Pacific during WW II would usually use passwords which contained that letter. Marine: What’s the password? Japanese infiltrator: 'Rirri Marrene." Marine: BANG! BANG! ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/130 "2013-10-17T19:33:00Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Another English / German mess-up which I like, involves the German verb “bekommen” – receive – which sounds like the English “become”. And – department telling-the-time – English “one o’ clock”, “two o’clock”, etc., is in German “Ein Uhr”, “Zwei Uhr”, etc. > > So; scene in restaurant in England – irate words to waiter, from German customer whose lunch is taking a very long time to arrive: “I have been here since one hour. When do I become a pork chop?” Curiously, the English word “get” can mean “become” as well as “receive”, in phrases like “It’s getting cold outside”. Informally it can even be the passive auxiliary verb, e.g. “they got beaten badly”. The German passive auxiliary verb _werden_[sup]1[/sup] can also be translated as “become” or “get”, as in becoming or turning into something, but never as “get” in the sense of receiving something. Given the overlap of some meanings in both languages, I see how it can be confusing for learners of either language. [sup]1[/sup]_Weird_ is actually a cognate of _werden_, which makes sense if you think about it. Many things can “look weird” when in the process of becoming something else. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/131 "2013-10-17T19:41:51Z")
Isn’t “weird” from an Old English word meaning “doom” or “fate”? ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/132 "2013-10-17T21:29:28Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > The German passive auxiliary verb _werden_[sup]1[/sup] can also be translated as “become” or “get”, as in becoming or turning into something, but never as “get” in the sense of receiving something. To add to the confusion, the verb _bekommen_, which looks and sounds like the English word “become”, means “get” in the sense of receive but not in the sense of “become”. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/133 "2013-10-18T03:28:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Isn’t “weird” from an Old English word meaning “doom” or “fate”? Yes, as in the Weird Sisters or Norns, the Fates of Teutonic mythology. According to the [Etymology Online entry](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=weird&searchmode=none) the Sisters in question were “odd and frightening” in appearance, which led to “weird” acquiring this meaning as an adjective. But that doesn’t necessarily rule out the the cognate relationship. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/134 "2013-10-18T05:52:17Z")
One of my exes was from Panama, and I gave up trying to teach him that “worse” doesn’t rhyme with “horse.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/135 "2013-10-21T08:38:34Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Met a couple of Austrians who were visiting the States some time back. They spoke very good English, but kept substituting ‘W’ for ‘V’ - which had me totally confused, especially since they were replacing a sound German uses with one it doesn’t! Most likely hypercorrection. They think that all /v/ sounds are pronounced like [w]. Still, I hope you had them say nuclear vessels at least once. ---
**Author:** ![knel3030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@knel3030](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/knel3030)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/136 "2013-10-21T09:34:46Z")
Oh, vat har you sinking about? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/137 "2013-10-21T11:38:40Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Another English / German mess-up which I like, involves the German verb “bekommen” – receive – which sounds like the English “become”. And – department telling-the-time – English “one o’ clock”, “two o’clock”, etc., is in German “Ein Uhr”, “Zwei Uhr”, etc. > > So; scene in restaurant in England – irate words to waiter, from German customer whose lunch is taking a very long time to arrive: “I have been here since one hour. When do I become a pork chop?” Time words such as “since” and “from” seem to be tricky to translate and there is often overlap. For example I have just got back from a weekend in Lisbon and I noticed a lot of signs outside bars advertising (in English) “Show tonight since 8pm” etc. The word “desde” in both Portuguese and Spanish can translate quite differently in English depending on context. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/138 "2013-10-21T14:11:27Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > The word “desde” in both Portuguese and Spanish can translate quite differently in English depending on context. Prepositions and/or declensions are always a bitch, in pretty much any language pair you care to name. Now excuse me, I’m having flashbacks to “the uses of _ut_ and _cum_”… _twitch_ ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/139 "2013-10-21T20:47:32Z")
So nobody mentioned how difficult English is for an Italian ? \*One day ima gonna Malta to bigga hotel. Ina morning I go to eat breakfast. I tella waitress I wanna two pissis toast. She brings me only one piss. I tella her I want to piss. She says go to the toilet. I say you no understand. I wanna to piss onna my plate. She say you better not piss onna plate, you sonna ma bitch. Later I go to eat at the bigga restaurant. The waitress brings me a spoon and a knife but no fock. I tella her I wanna fock. She tella me everyone wanna fock. I tella her you no understand. I wanna fock on the table. She say better not fock on the table, you sonna ma bitch. I don’t even know the lady and she calla me sonna ma bitch. So I go to my room inna hotel and there is no sheit onna my bed. I calla the manager and tella him I wanna sheit. He tella me to go to the toilet. I say you no understand. I wanna sheit on my bed. He say you better not sheit onna bed, you sonna ma bitch. I don’t even know the man and he calla me a sonna ma bitch. I go to the checkout and the man at the desk say: “Peace on you.” I say piss on you too, you sonna ma bitch. I gonna back to Italy.\* ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990/140 "2013-10-21T20:56:10Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > . . . I would almost always use “Cheval” (horse) instead of “Cheveaux” (hair). It’s been over 50 years since I took French, but I remember always making that mistake. Hey, “The Girl with the Golden Horse” makes sense to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-words-foreigners-often-get-confused/668990.md?page=6)