Some commonly used words that are mispronounced by many in Singapore.

1st of, not that my English is of any good, I just wanna share what I know. Entry's most suitable for Singaporeans - you'll know what I mean later. I'm only correcting mispronunciation in vowels, not going into long and short vowel sounds.

1. Say this word out loud "SALMON"

How many of you are guilty of pronouncing it as "sell-men"? More than 90% of the people I know mispronounced. The 'L' in 'SALMON' is supposed to be silent. So it should sound like "seh-men" (in the Singaporean way)


2. Responsible/respect/respond etc.

How do you pronounce the /res/? If you've pronounced it the way /res/ is in /rest/, you're wrong! In these words, /res/ should be pronounced as /ris/ as in /risk/.


3. Wednesday

Most of you will go "wed-nes-day" and bengs and lians will probably go "where-ners-day". Correct pronounciation "wenz-day".


4. EXCUSE ME

I'm sure you guys will pronounce this the correct way now. And you know what I'm gonna point out. Lians and bengs will go "skews-me" or "skews skews". LOL. My, I'm sure lians/bengs who are able to comprehend at least 50% of my blog content will benefit from this entry.


5. Lastly and most importantly to me, pronounce Genevieve in the english way (not french)

I've received lots of ridiculous pronounciations like "Jer-niv", "Gee-nee-vie", "Geen-ni-vi-af", "Jen-ner-vi"... whatever nonsense you can come up with. My parents picked this name and called me "Jen-nuh-veev", for "Jen" and "nuh" have short vowel sounds and "veev" with a long vowel sound. So call me the way my parents do! I bet most people in SG who named themselves after this name can't pronounce it the 100% correct way too!

Update 1.43pm:
ONE more word! Almond. Again the /l/ sound is silent!

Update 10/6/2008
Joan gave me a few more ideas!

1. Envelope/Entrepreneur/Ensemble
   These words are 'borrowed' into English from French so /e/ should sound like /o/ here, e.g. ahn-vuh-lope, ahn-truh-pruh-nur, ahn-sahm-ble
2. Nausea
   4 pronunciation: naw-zee-uh, naw-zhuh, naw-see-uh, naw-shuh
3. Nauseous
   2 pronunciations - naw-shuhs or naw-zee-uhs