If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

Every word? I'd say the figure would be higher than 90%.

I've always considered myself to be well above average in verbal skills. I aced every English course through high school and freshman college & I always did well on standardized tests. My older sister had a masters in English. When I was a kid, she always corrected my grammar and pronunciation. Nevertheless, there are a few that stumped me.

Hey Jasmine,

Most excellent. Right on.

Lots of fun! Of course I can read it - and use the words properly. Not bragging; I was just taught to love and use language. Unfortunately, as a kid I was a spelling bee nerd. It is very sad that people not only speak poorly but that the full vista of language has been neglected.

However, what is the word with the typo supposed to be - "Fe0ffe"? The correct word would nice, since I intend to send this poem along to others.

Thanks, OP!

As an English teacher I think this is brilliant! I am going to show this to my students on Monday. Thanks OP.

Im not sure how to pronounce latter.

Enjoy!


Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

And this happens because english has so few different sounds. Many words sound almost the same. Even combining latin with german words the stupid brits couldn't come out with a rich variety language.

Like ladder but with hard T sound instead of D. It means opposite of former.

that's like the some in the USA pronouncing butter as budder

Really speaking, you should end the sentence after ..'wordtards we are' with a period, then start a new sentence.

Like ladder but with hard T sound instead of D. It means opposite of former.

Op got too much time on his hands

It sounds that way, but it isn't. It is a "T" with the sound projected backward, instead of forward. This is a result of the tongue being drawn back, instead of forward.

Every word? I'd say the figure would be higher than 90%.

I've always considered myself to be well above average in verbal skills. I aced every English course through high school and freshman college & I always did well on standardized tests. My older sister had a masters in English. When I was a kid, she always corrected my grammar and pronunciation. Nevertheless, there are a few that stumped me.