These words must be complicated for non-native speakers to pronounce. In fact, many native speakers must do too as many reduce them phonetically to "fith" and "sikth".
The thing is - I don't. I pronounce all the consonants. I come from London but have moved around a lot. Does anyone have any information on what accents etc. pronounce these words properly and which ones don't.
Hi,
See the dictionary and practise your pronunciation a loud. It works because I did that in my first beginning.
Good luck.
>>>Baba, Simon Said he has no problem with this words since he comes from London. But thank for your advice, since many learners may find it helpfull.
>>>Simon, I have no problem with this words. What I find hard in English is the vowels and the numerous shorcuts which prevent me to recognize the words, sometimes.
prevent me from recognizing.
Simon, the corruptions I've heard most frequently are "fift" and "sixt" instead of "fifth" and "sixth." Sometimes even something like "fiff" for 5th and something like "sikss" for 6th. I'm thinking of the rural Appalachian speech I heard growing up. I think "fith" and "sikth" sound really strange, and don't recall hearing those before.
When I try to do the "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" tongue twister rapidly I end up collapsing "sixth" into "sikss."
I can't immediately think of anywhere else in the language where the combination of k-s-th sounds occurs! And it seems to me that we actually insert some kind of stop in between the s and th, more like k-s-t-th. My tongue definitely hits the back of my teeth for a `t' sound before moving between the teeth to articulate the `th.'
My lisp prevents me from pronouncing "sixth" correctly, though I don't have too much trouble pronouncing "fifth".
In Cockney, "fifth" and "sixth" turns into "fif" and "sixf."
I pronounce all the consonants too. I come from Sydney and I too have moved around a lot. I can't speak for my whole country though.
Clark, not everyone from London is a Cockney. I basically said that because I don't sound so typically London anymore and people whose accent sound like mine tend to say the corrupted versions. I meant more middle class inner London speech. I have never sounded Cockney much as it would make me sound hard and "salt of the earth". Maybe it's just because like Jim I have moved around a lot.
I do not believe I said EVERYONE from London is a Cockney, did I. I rather like the London accent (non-Cockney). The blond haired lady from Changing Rooms (Linda, I think she is called) has this accent.
> In Cockney, "fifth" and "sixth" turns into "fif" and "sixf."
I think "sixf" is much tougher to pronounce than the standard. How do they articulate the "xf" combination?
Do cockneys pronounce sixth as "sixf"? I've never noticed that. But cockneys do say things like "fink" instead of "think".
Saying "sixTH" is harder to me than saying "sixF."
Ok, I say "siksth" and "fif-th" (although it's possibly that the "s"/"f" and "th" sounds merge into a halfway sound rather than get said in their pure forms).
What do you say?
In America, we always pronounce the "th" at the end. However, there are some people who do not, most noteably, the blacks (they say "fif and sixf).