It has been said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn as a second language and considering that it is a mongrel mix made up of a sprinkling of French, Latin, German, Scandinavian and a fair few other languages it isn't surprising.
One test on German spies in ww2 who had otherwise perfect English was to get them to pronounce places such as Worcester or the surname Mainwaring which is where the Captain in Dad's Army gets his name. Fail and it's off to the clink and apparently many did but as we have no German spies today to catch, we settle for confusing tourists and laughing at the way Americans say 'Aluminium' and 'Route' instead.
There are some words that represent more of a challenge to non-native English speakers than others and they have handily created a top ten of 'How the hell do you say that??' words.
The top ten words are:
1. Queue
2. Appreciate
3. Chaos
4. Comfortable
5. Lieutenant
6. Paradigm
7. Quay
8. Squirrel
9. Worcester
10. Penguin
Grasp these east Europeans and before you know it you will be telling that joke about the penguin and the squirrel queuing in Worcester.
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