Fun with Pronunciation--English

For all of you who think they know English pronunciation to a t, try yourself at this poem by G. Nolst Trenité which I found online last week. It is amazing, and I am pretty sure I got a few words wrong when I read it aloud. However, it was great fun to test myself. This poem shows the chaos of English pronunciation in a fun and compelling way. After you have read this, maybe you understand a little better why people who learn English as a foreign language may make pronunciation mistakes.

To take just one example from the poem:

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

We have the same letter combination but various pronunciations. There is no hint as to why you pronounce the word the way you do, and learners of English have two options: to look it up in a dictionary, which is highly impractical in a conversation, or to take their chances with one pronunciation and hope it is the correct one.

Granted, that's exactly the reason why most language courses (even the self-learner courses) come with audio CDs. You only get that far with such a course, though. After that, there are so many different ways to improve your English, not all of which come with pronunciation help. At least, I haven't yet seen a single novel which gave me the correct pronunciation after each word....

Guess what I am trying to say: Be a bit more tolerant towards someone speaking English as a second language when they try to get it right but make pronunciation mistakes. And, just for fun, imagine you trying to pronounce their native language correctly....

Thanks again for this delightful poem, English Pronunciation, G. Nolst Trenité!