With nine letter and four syllables, the tongue-twisting "phenomenon" has been named as the most mispronounced word in the English language.由九個字母和四個音節(jié)組成的,發(fā)音饒舌的“現(xiàn)象”一詞成為英語里面最難念的單詞。
The word came first in a study of terms that are tricky to get your tongue around, with most people mixing up the letters M and N on a regular basis.這個詞在調(diào)查中之所以名列榜首,是因?yàn)閜henomenon中的"m"和"n"一個連一個,讓你的嘴皮子倒騰不過來。
"Anaesthetist" came second because of quickly moving between the TH to the letters T at the end.“麻醉師”一詞的發(fā)音排名第二,難就難在"th"和"t"的音連接得太緊。
In third place was "remuneration", which is often mispronounced as "renumeration".“報(bào)酬”位居第三。這個詞難在它經(jīng)常被誤讀為"renumeration"。
Almost half of the 3,000 people surveyed admitted they often correct someone if they say something in the wrong way and a quarter of people said they thought mispronunciation showed a lack of intelligence.參與調(diào)查的3000人中,幾乎一半的受訪者表示他們經(jīng)常會糾正別人錯誤的發(fā)音,四分之一的受訪者說,發(fā)音錯誤容易給人知識水平不高的印象。
But suprisingly in the list of admissions, Britons admitted that February was the 12th hardest word to spit out.令人驚奇的是,英國人把“二月”一詞推上榜單,位列最難發(fā)音的第十二位。
A spokesman for Spinvox, a voicemail to text message service, which carried out the research, said: "Phenomenon is very hard to say because of the structure of the word."語音通信公司Spinvox進(jìn)行了這項(xiàng)調(diào)查。該公司的發(fā)言人說:“Phenomenon這個字很難念是因?yàn)檫@個詞本身的結(jié)構(gòu)?!?/p>
"There are some real tongue-twisters in the list and it's understandable how many people can get confused when pronouncing certain words. "“這次的列表中有一些單詞確實(shí)很饒舌,所以許多人在念這些單詞時(shí)感覺困難是可以理解的。”
"A word one person finds easy to say, maybe difficult for the next person. Although it's worrying that some people find basic words such as February difficult to say."“某些人覺得好念的單詞對其他人來說卻可能并不好念,就像一些人覺得“二月”之類的基本單詞很難念。”
The company found that other difficult words to feature in the poll include "regularly" at 11, "particularly" at 13 and "prejudice" at 17.該公司發(fā)現(xiàn)的其他一些引人注目的難讀的上榜單詞包括位列11的“有規(guī)律地”、位列13的“尤其”和位列17的“偏見”。
More than a third of people even say they avoid using words they know they struggle with altogether so they do not end up looking stupid.超過三分之一的受訪者表示,為了不犯傻,他們會避免使用自己念不清楚的單詞。
(英語點(diǎn)津Jennifer編輯)
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