We will continue our course with an assorted list of commonly mispronounced words:
xenon, xerox, xenophobia – perhaps as a great disappointment to all fans of a dubbed version of Xena: Warrior Princess comes the fact that “x” at the beginning of any word is not pronounced as [ks], but as [z].
angelic – do you remember the pronunciation of angel from previous lessons? Although “angelic” is derived from it, the stress has moved to the second syllable, and the vowels have to be changed accordingly.
bury – a burial is a sad and important event. Don't spoil it by pronouncing it wrong. “Bury” is pronounced exactly the same as “berry”. Really. Click on it and listen to it.
anchor – although a ship that fishes for anchovy will probably have an anchor, the two words are not etymologically related, and they are also pronounced differently.
gauge – this word is especially useful to guitarists who speak about string gauges (i.e. how thick they are). It is pronounced as if the “u” were not there.
draught – this is just the British spelling of “draft” and is also pronounced the same. It is not spelled this way in all the meanings of “draft”; for example when it is a verb (i.e. when someone drafts something), it is spelled “draft” in British English as well.
chaos – the pronunciation of this word is actually quite regular, but people tend to pronounce it as the same word in their own language, which usually differs from its English pronunciation.
infamous – although the word is just “famous” with the prefix “in-” stuck in the front, it is not pronounced so.
niche – this word, originally meaning a shallow recess or simply a nice place or position, is also often used to mean a particular narrow field of interest―especially in business. Its pronunciation can be somewhat unexpected.
rhythm – there are only two common English words beginning with “rhy”: rhyme and rhythm (if you don't count words directly derived from these). Too bad they don't rhyme.
onion – one of a couple of words in which “o” is pronounced as [ʌ] (just like in “come”).
accessory – there is a common mispronunciation even among native speakers who sometimes pronounce it as [əˈsɛsəri]. This is often considered an error and should be avoided by English learners.
ion – an atom or a molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons. Not to be confused with the name Ian pronounced [ˈiːən].
cation – a positively charged ion, which therefore moves towards the cathode; similarity with words like caution is purely accidental.
chocolate – it's never too late for a piece of chocolate, so there's never “late” in the pronunciation of the word “chocolate”.
course – although the word is of French origin, the “ou” is not pronounced like “u”, but rather like “aw”. The same is true for the phrase “of course”.
finance – just pay attention to the second vowel, which is pronounced [æ], not [ə].
beige – this word is of French origin and inherits its French pronunciation. The “g” is pronounced the same as in massage.
garage – similarly, pronounced with the “zh” sound.
photograph – the word is synonymous with a photo, not the person who takes the picture as in many other languages. The person is a photographer – notice that the stress is now on the second syllable, whereas it was on the first syllable in “photograph”. To make the confusion complete, the stress in the word photographic is on the third syllable.
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suite – this word is pronounced exactly the same as “sweet”. This word has lots of different meanings, so make sure to check the dictionary by clicking on the word in the blue row.
Jakub Marian