Originally Posted by TheLastFortnight
(Post 850242)
Interesting thread, even though it's old. I learnt English using only dictionaries because I was always playing games and they're all in English around here, so I think it's relatively easy to learn, especially the grammar. My spelling is not so good though... I think the pronounce is the difficult part, English pronounce is irregular compared to other languages, in Portuguese if you learn the rules you can easily pronounce every word because the pronounce is always close to the way the word is written.
In English, the pronounce varies a lot, here some examples:
In the words night, light, fight, sight, the gh is never pronounced but in the end of words like tough and enough the gh is pronounced as an f but you don't pronounce the gh in the end of words like though.
The f of of is pronounced as v. Also, the ph is pronounced as v sometimes as well. Like in the dated pronounce of the word nephew.
The word colonel is written with an l but rhotic English speakers pronounce the word with an r like [kəː(r)nəl] which is crazy.
In English the definite article the has three pronounces like [ðɪ] before vowel sound and [ðə] before consonant sound and the stressed or emphatic [ðiː] and I don't know why.
English has stressed and unstressed pronounces for words like can, them, but, some, from, at, as...
The -ed suffix of the past and past participle of verbs have different pronounces it might be pronounced like a d after vowel or certain consonants, like an id after d and t and like a t after consonants like s of stressed and k of fucked. However, adjectives with the sufix -ed don't follow this rule and the pronounce most of time is id, thus loved [lʌvd] but beloved [bɪlʌvɨd]
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