English words, Polish pronunciation

When we were in London, my partner pronouced some English words as if they were Polish words.

To give a simple example.

If you replace 'Wash room' with 'Vash room', it sounds quite strange.


Often, when I look at a word in foreign language: Welsh, Polish: the letters mean nothing to me. I do not have a clue how to pronounce the word. Furthermore, I have difficulty in even remembering the letters, because their order is so meaningless.

People who want to learn English are very fortunate because there are so many free resources. To try and do it the other way round is much more difficult. (To learn a foreign language.) Also, what is the point?

Google - Did you mean: pronounced

Sorry, my spelling mistake, I thought it looked wrong.

I feel as if my time would be better spent improving my English.




Just a little aside. "Scottish Nationalism"

In Scotland, when they want to appoint someone they draw up a "Short leet".

Is that really necessary?

What is wrong with "Short List"?

leet definition

leet (lēt)

noun
Historical in England, a manorial court or its jurisdiction

Etymology: ME & Anglo-Fr lete, akin ? to OE læth, land division, esp. in southeast England

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.

Words need not be capitalised just because they are the first word in a set of quotes.


The Beatles - Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

"I have difficulty in even remembering the letters, because their order is so meaningless"

If order of the letters is meaningless it could only be English! We don't feel fortunate to have to memorize all of your meaningless spelling.

Lots of people have difficulty with English spelling and other aspects of English such as capitalisation. Often the rules, are not particularly clear cut.


If you have been brought up with the English language, you become familiar with certain letter combinations. For instance, i,n, and g often go together (ing) as do e and r (er). There are other common letter combinations, and you could run a computer program to show what letters go together and what letters do not go together.

For instance, if I write 'togehter', I suspect something is wrong because h and t rarely occur together in this order. (That sort of mistake is often a typo.)


The principle of Supermemo is that you get better by practice, and by bringing back words that you have already learnt at regular intervals.

However if you just string words together, you will sound like a computer program. Which is why 'pop music' is an important medium for learning English.

In some languages the 'inflections' are in the spelling. In English, the inflections, are in the way the word is pronounced. So, when someone is questioning something, they will often raise the tone of their voice (higher) at the end of a sentence.

That's John's pen!

Where were you last night?

etc.

If you live in the UK, and you listen to the news and read the newspapers, you are constantly reminded of words with have a low frequency in the language normally.

On the BBC News this morning.

"Jason Button burnt his buttocks in Bahrain."

(buttocks is quite an unusual word)


Similarly I have seen one or two headlines about the new talent discovered on 'Britain's got Talent' a singing contest. The new talent is a middle aged spinster with an off-putting appearance.

"in the Brown Stuff": when she tried to change her appearance, and dyed her hair brunette etc upsetting the people who were managing her presentation.

(The Brown Stuff is Sh*t by the way.)

Even more unkind.

"The two Boyles": The discovery of another middle aged woman who can sing called - Boyle - a fairly common name in Scotland.

"Boil": is also the name of an ugly sore on the skin.

So - the newspaper is suggesting that these two women are ugly sores. Not very nice.


Attacks on my capitalisation on antimoon are mild in comparison.


Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

<<Lots of people have difficulty with ... other aspects of English such as capitalisation.>>



Hardly anybody does!

Ok, what are the rules of capitalisation?

Be positive and constructive - not anonymous and negative!


Inflection


That's John's pen!

Where were you last night?


THAT'S JOHN'S PEN!

WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?

That's John's PEN!

Where were YOU last night?

WHERE were you last night?

etc etc

<<That's John's pen! >>


Proper nouns are capitalised.
The first letter in a sentence is capitalised.


<<
THAT'S JOHN'S PEN!

WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?

That's John's PEN!

Where were YOU last night?

WHERE were you last night? >>


These words are capitalised because the author intends the word to be stressed when spoken (rather informal). Basically the same as bold or italic fonts.


There you go! It's not rocket science!

So, what is a proper noun?

Taken from Wikipedia because we all know how accurate that is:
Proper nouns are nouns representing unique entities (such as London, Jupiter, or Johnny), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class of entities (such as city, planet, or person). Proper nouns are not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier (such as "any" or "some"), and are used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have.

What is a proper noun? A noun that gets capitalized. Which nouns get capitalized? Proper nouns.

The names of the four seasons -- "winter", "spring", "summer", and "fall" or "autumn" -- are not considered proper nouns. However, names of months of the year (such as "September") and days of the week (such as "Sunday") are considered proper nouns.

Names of sports and games, such as "tennis" and "chess", may refer to unique entities, but for some reason are not capitalized.