I feel honored to know that you included Sindhi language in your video as it's my mother tongue. Meherbani awanh ji ta awanh Sindhi khe unji ehmiyat dini 🇵🇰😊
A large swathe of the sounds exist in various dialects of different languages. I wonder how many natural sounds modernist scholars working to make up some standard tones have eliminated. The modern sovereign state is an artificial barrier to human solidarity and harmony.
I'm Russian and used to have lisp when i was a kid and pronounced "s" like "th". Good to know that it helped later to learn English. My classmates were struggling with "th" but not me.
That definitely became a brag later in life! Meanwhile I’m a native English speaker but when I was younger I used to be terrible at pronouncing numerous sounds, especially the “th” sound (I don’t remember what other sounds but I do remember that I had to do speech exercises to kind of correct my pronunciation so I’m assuming I struggled at more than just the “th” sound). It wasn’t very helpful especially considering the fact that my name has that sound in it. Anyway the point is this comment brought back memories of me explaining to people that I couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound when introducing myself. Also sorry for this comment being so long
@sampanda407 I couldn't say alleluja (Polish eq. of hallelujah) for the life of me. Every other damn word, no matter how difficult - I could pronounce, including a tongue twister: Konstantynopolitańczykiewiczówna - I was nailing it every time, but not that damn alleluja. I pronounced it as: ayeyuja XD It was a short lived issue, but still. I guess everybody had some issues with pronouncing words in their native languages but they simply don't remember. Also, I am an English teacher and one of the first things I teach is... pronunciation of th :D
I’ve taught scores of Japanese people to pronounce “6th“ over the years, and there’s no process more guaranteed to produce tears of joy. It can be done folks!
Just curious, which version of 6th? The English one (where the "x" is rendered as a simple "k" instead of "ks") is quite a bit easier than the other versions where the entire "ksth" string is retained.
@@tbirdparis - What do you mean by "[t]he English one (where the "x" is rendered as a simple "k" instead of 'ks')"? Are you saying that in England people pronounce the word _sixth_ as /sɪkθ/ rather than /sɪksθ/? I'm from the US, and I've certainly never heard anyone pronounce the word that way.
I agree. I've tried to explain to people how to pronounce the German r in e.g. "hart" and that it's different from r following a consonant as in e.g. "treffen". The latter seems to be a lot easier as it has an actual sound whereas the r in "hart", "stark", "fahren" etc. is quite elusive.
@@YuliaHadassahK doesn't it almost prolong the vowel before it? In treffen this is more the back tongue r. Can't describe these, I can only pronounce them :P
For Russian the emphasis (ударение) is the most difficult part of the language. In Polish on every penultimate syllable. In Russian very irregular and unpredictable.
@@alfonsmelenhorst9672 yes, the "shifting" accent, my nightmare, when I was learning Russian XD Polish has predominantly stable accent on the second to last syllable in words. If the word has only two syllables the accent is on the first one, obviously. Not talking about dialectal varieties, of course, but standard version of Polish.
as Polish, id like to correct some things: 1. first phrase is a tongue twister, hard even for poles. 2. if u say prosię instead of proszę, everyone will understand you, we rather use word świnia to call a pig, prosię is a small pig. 3.the last phrase is also a tongue twister, but i never heard that before
I’ve studied Spanish, Arabic, Esperanto, Chinese, and Portuguese, and the only one i’ve ever struggled with at all in terms of pronunciation, or ever received any negative feedback from native speakers in, is Arabic. Pronunciation has always been my best skill in language, and even in languages i haven’t studied i’ve been able to impress native speakers by my imitation skill. But Arabic has been a totally different, humbling experience..
As an Arab, I can confidently say that it’s almost impossible to sound like a native if you are not native. Our language is just too hard phonetically. And we Arabs can imitate most sounds of other languages easily, even if it doesn’t exist in our language. Our throats and tongues are already well trained. For example in this video the only sound I genuinely couldn’t imitate was the Czech R.
@@Ahmed-pf3lgsorry to say that but even Arabic speakers can struggle with the pronunciation of other languages. I am always skeptical of general statements like these.
@@annettg1202 I don't have this impression. Tell me any Arabic native speaker who sounds like a native in all languages as he claims. I have come across languages with far more difficult sounds anyway
I'm from England and have always pronounced the "th" sound just as a regular "f" sound, it's how i naturally grew up and learned it, for my whole life no one has ever mentioned or questioned it either
You're my hero. I'm a Russian and TH was the most fucked thing I ever struggled with in my school days. We dont have that shht in Russian, and no articles either))
TBH I think the only people who are bothered by pronunciation of "th" are English teachers - I've been in many different parts of UK yet almost all of them had different pronunciation of "th" and even me, nonnative speaker, it was easy to pick up, so the differences have to be huuuuge.
Georgian sounds like it was seriously taken from prehistoric times and don't mean it in a bad way - when I hear linguists talking about Proto-Indo-European, I think of Georgian for some reason, it just feels like a time machine. Greetings!
"Ř" is really crazy... so Poles got rid of it a couple of centuries ago and replaced it with an ordinary Ż (but they continue writing it as "rz"). By the way, Ř in Czech often becomes voiceless, typically after another voiceless consonant.
That's why in Polish there is one sound that can be spelled as "ż" or as "rz", depending on word's etymology. A real struggle for Polish kids at school.
I'm a learner of Polish. For some strange reasons, I didn't struggle much when I started learning this sound, despite it also doesn't exist in my mother tongue, Thai. Probably thanks to my teacher and my Polish friends.
What about Russian? The famous "Ы" sound (it exists also in Polish and Romanian, but not in the same exact form), hard and soft consonant pairs for almost all consonants (and always making minimal pairs!), dark L before vowels, strong vowel reduction (especially of "O"), assimilations of consonants, unpredictable stress patterns (unlike Polish or Czech), even pairs of words with the same exact orthography, but different stress...
for me hardest part in Russian is the intonation, you ve to learn for each word, in Polish is always second last syllable, whereas Czech always first: btw medieval Polish was like Czech!
Ejectives in Georgian are difficult. But strangely enough, some ejective pronunciation of certain consonants has been creeping its way into many English dialects relatively recently. People are increasingly making their "k" sounds ejective, with quite a distinct click to it, when trying to make emphasis.
My father unknowingly makes ejective consonants relatively often in his speech at the end of words, especially at the end of sentences. He makes an ejective k, t, and p (and probably more) pretty often.
So for me as a German the ejectives like k', t' or ts' are not that difficult. With this q', I'm not sure if it would be pronounced as the "qaf" in Arabic or only with a glottal stop. And the kh is the most difficult so I can't pronounce
even for Poles over pronouncing words sound weird, so those tongue twisters are usually used as a flex, that we achieved mastery, or "mistrzostwo" PS. yes, we really do hate vowels xD
I've been studying Georgian (used to live there a couple of years ago and will be moving back next month! 🇬🇪) and absolutely love the language. It's so beautiful and rich. I don't have too much trouble with the sounds except for that dreaded ყ sound. I can use it with an "a" vowel afterwards, but definitely struggle with following it with an "i" vowel. Oh well, just gotta practice and practice! ❤
3:54 Ewe is considered on of the most difficult languages in Ghana. It doesn't just do that weird thing to the 'f' sound, it does it to 'd', 'v' and 'p' as well. It gives the language a characteristic sound as if the speaker's mouth is filled with food.
As a Georgian learner I can assure you the pronunciation is the easiest part… if you think pronouncing ყ is difficult, wait until you see the verb system 🤣
The Tlingit language uses the "ɬ" sound like Navajo. Actually, this sounds is quite common in the native American languages of the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska. Tlingit has an ejective form of ɬ, as well as combinations of it. For example dl, tl, tl'. The language has no L or R sound that is in nearly all languages. It also has a near full set of ejectives, including the back part of the mouth. It is likely to contain sounds in no other language.
@@LangXplorer Thanks for having an interest in the Tlingit language! Certainly the phonology and verb system is the most intimidating aspect. It is a very beautiful and unique language. The ɬ is one of my favorite sounds, so it is cool to hear it is on the Caucasus languages. It is a part of the world I'm interested in. I found it quite interesting that Georgian phonology had some similar features. The ejective consonants seem to be most common in mountainous regions.
I also immediately thought of Tlingit! Glad to see it in the comments. I think the -tl sound in the Nahuatl language has a similar tongue position too (and it's in the same language family as Navajo!)
I would have thought Tlingit would have easily made this list. There is even a book called "Sneaky Sounds" that is meant to help with the difficult pronunciation.
I guessed Upper Tanana instead of Navajo or Tlingit because that has the sound too. Although I guess it makes sense since all three languages are grouped in the Athabaskan/Na-Dene language family.
Hey Ollie, Japanese is definitely one the hardest languages to learn (for English speakers), but the one thing that isn’t that hard is the pronunciation
What makes it difficult for English speakers isn’t exactly the pronunciation, but more so because of the three writing system: Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Similarily, both English and Japanese use intonation depending on the pitch accent
Most people get it wrong when learning foreign sounds. If you can’t hear the sound, you won’t be able to make it. So the first stage is to listen to the language, and gradually you will start to build a representation of it in your brain. Once you have that, you can then start to make it yourself. For some sounds, such as both ch sounds in German, and the ll in Welsh, you might need some help from a native speaker - on UA-cam say - explaining the mechanics. And it often takes time, because you’re training your muscle memory. In other words, your tongue and mouth muscles are having to learn new movements, not unlike learning to ride a bike. In fact, an accent comes slowly, as your hearing and muscle memory improve. Sometimes you can’t make a sound until you get the timing and intonation correct. Even if your accent stinks, keep at it, keep working, you will get there. Oh, and native speakers are often not good teachers, they can be the worst, because it’s natural for them.
I looooove polish! Am learning polish at the moment "So-che-vi-tsa kowo mee-ele mwy" ;) And "vwo-swa-vek" I don't find pronun hard til i hit words like prszeprasam with 4 or 5 consonants in a row haha
I'd like to say, that Czech consonant {ř} is mostly confused with polish dyphtong {rz}. In Czech {ř} makes sound like a [rʒ] while in Polish {rz} makes just [ʒ]. Recently in Polish existed a dyphtong {rż} that makes the Czech {ř} sound but it exactly has evolved to {rz}. Thete is also a letter {ż}, that also makes the sound [ʒ]. In Polish we have also a letter {ł} that stands for the sound [ŭ] or [w]. Polish is not a language, it's a mind state. And I say it while I'm actually a Pole.
The Sicilian Language - and yes, it is a language, not a dialect of Italian, has roughly 9 sounds that are not found in Italian. One of the most difficult is DD as in the word “beddu” (beautiful). Even children of Sicilian immigrants have a hard time with it. It is basically like the D in English “good” but with a longer “stop”. This is extremely difficult for non-natives when it is an initial sound as in “ddà” - “there”. Then there is the R. Similar to the Czech R, the TR, which has variations within it, the STR and the DR, similar but not quite like the DR of English “shrug” and “drug”.
I say "Sixth" properly. 😁 Icelandic and I think Faroese also have the "Thorn" and "Eth" sounds, as well as that "tl"/"ll" sound in Navajo and Welsh (Tlingit has it too). That's one of the nice things about Finnish; the pronunciation is very straightforward. It's the case system and consonant gradation that will get you.
The intervocalic T and D in American English in words like better and header is quite a rare sound and difficult to articulate for non-native speakers. I can even tell in movies that it's a British actor playing an American character when he or she sometimes let slip a not so quite genuine rendition of those sounds.
You're talking about the voiced dental/alveolar tap, right? I thought it was a pretty common sound in a lot of languages. I know Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and some other languages use it.
@@katelinakeene7578 It's not exactly the same. The tap is ever more slight and with more aspiration in the American version. But yeah, I get what you mean, it does sound quite similar to the r in some variants of Spanish as well as Japanese, Korean and most dialects of Turkish.
@@elimalinsky7069 That tap sound or something very close, I believe can also be found in many European languages, namely Portuguese, Italian, French, German...
Hungarian is incredibly complicated when it comes to grammar and complexity. But the pronuntcation of the individual sounds itself isnt that difficult or unique compared to other languages in Central Europe.
@@ihavenoidea2736 they're all pretty easy. you just have to remember to pronounce the "e"s and "a"s very dark and open and keep track of what vowel is long and short. i can repeat a hungarian word in one try, but to make any sense of the language seems borderline impossible. learning it would be fun, but futile since at least half of all hungarians i've met speak almost perfect german anyway. greetings from austria.
Danish actually has four standard ways to pronounce d: hard (often in the start of a syllable, such as in "dansk", "Danmark"), soft (as demonstrated on the video, and which derives from an ð, so actually a variant of the th-sound found in English words like "leather"), silent (in front of an s or t as in "spids" or in "mareridt", or occasionally at the end of a word/syllable in some dialects, such as "mord" in Jutlandic) and as an epiglottal stop (often after a konsonant and at the end of a word as in "and" or "ild"). In some Jutlandic dialects, the soft d kan take on the character of a Danish j (similar to y in English) and on the island of Fyn it is often missed out completely. So yeah, we actually have lots of ways to pronounce d.
I think tamazight definitely deserves a place in this video :) I'm kabyle and despite hearing my dad speak the language all the time, It took me years to be able to pronounce certain words perfectly, along with the correct accent
the [ ř ] IS a sound you can find in spanish. it's mostly known as "assibilated r" and tend to occur when people with a Andean dialect pronounce word with s and r close together. Well some r at the end of a syllable sometimes turn into a ř, kinda randomly too.
I feel the Cyrillic alphabet helps a ton with the unique Slavic sounds, because some letters are a 1:1 match for the sound, unlike Polish which in written form is extremely difficult for English speakers to read aloud with the proper pronunciation
Polish use of latin alphabet is nuts. Czech, Slovak and all the southern Slavic languages use it better. Polish somehow forgot to modernize it with diacritics.
The trick is listening. Listen to regular A then Ayn repeatedly until you hear the difference. I did the same with B and P until I managed to do it lol
I have some advice for you, and I am of Arab origin, and I am happy to help you with the pronunciation of “ayn” in The Arabic language is that the letter “Ayn” comes out of the muscles that are used for vomiting, that is, from the stomach, if you notice that
I’m Sindhi, and I’ve always thought it had a difficult pronunciation, this coming from someone who grew up speaking it, I also had to learn and am still learning how to pronounce some sounds 😂! But I’m honestly so socked (and happy) that you mentioned it!
First of all, there is a missing letter in this sentence in 9:47: "Soczewica, koło, miele, młyn" [Lentils, near or wheel, grinds, mill] Second: It is a real pity that most linguists never spoke about minority languages. Even when my native is Silesian I would like to share some news about Kashubian. It is a West Lechitic language that sounds awesome, but is hard to speak [Phonologic is more unique compared to other languages from this group]. Here is a sample: ua-cam.com/video/NAYpp73_qG4/v-deo.html Pozdrŏwiōm! Chōwcie siã!
this is super interesting but i wish you would show the articulation animation longer or multiple times so we can see how to make these absurd beautiful sounds!!
This was a fun video! As a kid, I may or may not have been the bored kid in the classroom that would make all kinds of noises with my mouth…and never got caught🤣I thoroughly enjoyed attempting to make all those sounds!
Olly, I just returned, and this time around I learned via Wikipedia that Nexalk is also known by the name Bella Coola, and is on Canada's Vancouver Island in British Columbia. A few weeks ago, I saw this word on a video here, and was so intrigued, I called the tribal office, and learned the following: Ka:’yu:’K’t’h’/Che:K’tles7et’h’ = kah-you-kuh-CHECK-ul-seth, which is also on Vancouver Island.
As a danish person who is fluent in english has family in france and thus speaks spme french and is at a conversational level in japanese I see this as a complete win
As a southern Norwegian I always get tripped up by Danish because it's so close but yet so different and I couldn't quite figure out the missing link. Shame I found this video the day after coming home from Denmark, but hopefully I'll remember the tongue trick for next time
I didn't expect our language, Japanese, to show up on this list. It's so easy to pronounce, including the "f" sound, which may be more of an "h" sound at times.
Americans have a strange kink with claiming that Japanese is difficult. I've been learning English for 25 years and Japanese for only 15 years, yet I sound completely natural in Japanese and people can't really tell on a phone while I gave up on attempting to sound natural in English - it's just too hard and messy, it feels like the sounds are endless and every word needs a separate pronounceation training, which is just too much
Actually to replicate Japanese accent is pretty easy, much easier than English or Russian with their random stress and up and down intonation and schwa sounds instead of clear vowels.
Hard disagree. It's nothing like it. At least most of the time. English "math" doesn't sound like the Danish "mad" at all for example. I think I've only heard it somewhat like the "th" when somebody says "gider" as in "det gider jeg ikke". To non-natives the soft D really sounds much more like an L. It's like trying to make an L sound without letting your tongue touch the top of your mouth. For context, I'm a Dutch person living in Denmark for about 4 years now.
@@IvoB1987 To make a soft d, you have to place the tongue towards the back side of the top front teeth as you would for a hard English th-sound in for example the word either or wither, but not actually make contact with the teeth by moving it downwards. The same sound as @runerain mentions in the words chosen, but a soft d never comes at the start of a syllable. It is actually also pretty much the same tongue placement many languages use to make an l-sound, so maybe this is the root of your confusion? But to a Dane l and soft d sound nothing like each other ;)
@@CrisFromSvartsot most guides and also most people say to put the tongue to the bottom teeth, not the top. Maybe it depends on the region or something. Danish pronunciation really is a huge pain in the ass
@@IvoB1987 Well, you have two Danes telling you pretty much the same thing. The soft d derives from ð, which is the same as the hard English th-sound, as in "leather". Not the soft one in "math". So go to make that sound, but turn the end of the tongue down at the last minute. And no, Danish pronunciation is not so bad. The Dutch gutterals are harder ;)
Welsh has a few other sounds that are a bit tricky to pronounce, like rh [r̥], mh [m̥], nh [n̥] and ngh [ŋ̊]. For example, my dog is fy nghi [və ŋ̊iː], and in Pwllheli is ym Mhwllheli [əm m̥ʊɬˈhɛli]. Now try Rhedodd fy nghi ym Mhwllheli efo fy nhad (My dog ran in Pwllheli with my dad).
It seems very difficult for native English speakers to pronounce the nasal sounds of Portuguese, especially the "Ã" like in the words "Pão", "Não", "Então".
IF you think reading polish is imposible check "how to read polish or smth" - he's explaning it nicely from a native POV. And consonant clusters are much easier then it looks ;)
3:57 i learned to do that sound by myself by just reading an article im pretty sure. you can make it if you combine the sound p and h makes. the sounds also the reason why some words in english that contain the f sound are written with ph. it comes from old greek
Wow, I never expected Polish on this list. Here is the tip to differenciate sz and si. It's not really about mouth shape. When pronouncing si, your tongue should be positioned for saying "eee" like in "sheet", but while making si sound the tongue should be even more lifted closer to the palatum leaving very tiny gutter going along your tongue. If you can do german "Ich" you're very close. Just close your jaw and it'll do. For sz, the tongue needs to curl backward like for indian r or d. Or you can just transform english sh into sz by curling the tip of your tongue back to the middle of your palatum. Maybe it helps someone. Good luck ✨
The “Ы” sound in Russian is pretty hard for foreigners too. Probably the closest thing to it in English can be found in the phrase “go with it” (the second “i” sound)
8:22 Actually in arabic we have something called قلقلة qalqala which is emphasising certain sounds and pronouncing them at the back of your throat so we know how to make this sound also
I just make a regular English "f" sound when I want to say the syllable "fu" in Japanese. I can make the trilled "r" sound (famously used in Spanish), even at the end of a word, and can do the rounded and nasal vowels of French. The French "r" is the one sound in that language that I really can't do, I wonder how I sound to native speakers when I try to approximate it. Making foreign consonant and vowel sounds as a native English speaker is always a lot of fun. I particularly like the clicks of southern African languages, such as Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's first language).
The Welsh town of Machynlleth stumps many English speakers. It uses the throat-clearing CH sound (very common in Klingon I believe) followed quickly by the LL sound and a TH to round off. I can do it!
@@hiberniancaveman8970 Nowadays there's no difference in pronouncation between Rz and Ż. Until XVII century Rz used to sound exactly like Ř. Now it's a relic in some dialects like Masurian.
i think i as a swedish person managed to produce some of these sounds! my roommates are probably wondering why i'm doing weird random noises in the middle of the night.
I have always had an interest in languages and pronounciation of other letters, so a lot of these I was already able to pronounce which was fun to learn since I do not apply it much due to English.
The sixth bit got me thinking about a fun word in swedish. When something is from a place you can denote it by an "-skt" suffix like "Stockholmskt" (something from Stockholm). This means you can technically say something from the west coast is "Västkustskt". Because it's so hard to pronounce people usually just say "från västkusten" instead
I knew x!óõ (Taa) would be here, it’s my favourite language, I mean I’m a British 14 year old so I don’t have a chance of speaking it but I think it sounds amazing.I think the term khoisan is a tad outdated because it groups together completely unrelated languages just because of region but im not entirely sure. A Good video though, it’s a language far too few know about.
I could be wrong, but I believe that's further forward. If I'm not mistaken, the Czech sound is made with the tip of the tongue against the gum ridge, while the Irish sound is made with the blade of the tongue there. There is, of course, some variation among Irish dialects. I'm ready for correction or confirmation.
@@angreagach I'm Czech. You are right with the czech "ř". :-) Btw, there are another difficult sounds for the English speakers in Czech: c, č, ď, h, ch, ň, ř, š, ť and ž. All of the vowels in Czech can be short (a, e, i, o, u, y) and long (á, é, í, ó, ú or ů, ý) and their length not depend on accent, which is valid - for the example - in Russian. Length and accent are in Czech two different and independent categories.
One thing that really makes it hit home how amazing the human brain is when it comes to languages is ironically learning computer programming and specifically how compilers work. We have symbols (letters) that can be pronounced in countless different ways and even if mispronounced, the listener can commonly still understand what's being said and when it comes to writing the symbols can be switched around, left out and replaced with others quite extensively and still be intelligible. We can even say the exact same thing but convey different meaning through tone of voice and even further by adding facial expressions and body language. When writing software on the other hand, you can't make a single mistake before the compiler get's tripped up.
Pero si el Japones es de los mas faciles de pronunciar, claro hay sonidos que no existen en nuestros respectivos idiomas nativos pero aun asi el Japones tiene una pronunciacion muy simple Y no estuvieron los idiomas sudafricanos como el Zulu, Xhosa, Swati o Ndebele que tambien cuentan con clicks, y una gran variedad de consonantes y vocales, o algunos del caucaso como el Abjasio, Checheno, Avar o Circasiano (que con por mucho mas dificiles de pronunciar que el Georgiano y tienen mas sonidos eyectivos) Por experiencia propia intente estudiar varios idiomas del caucaso y puedo confirmar esto, el mas dificil para mi fue el Abjasio por la cantidad de fonemas raros y dificiles que tiene, ademas como el Georgiano o el Circasiano el Abjasio tambien carece de vocales Esto no lo saben muchos, pero otro dificil es el Mazateco, especificamente el dialecto de Xalapa, es tonal, tiene +20 vocales, sonidos eyectivos y sonidos silbados, creo que este tambien podria considerarse como dificil
@@lisamarydew Si, obvio casi nadie tiene tantos clicks como los idiomas khoisan, pero los idiomas sudafricanos que mencione igual son mas dificiles de pronunciar que muchos de los mencionados en la lista
Japanese is one of the easiest languages pronunciation wise (the bilabial fricative literally takes seconds to learn). Everything else in Japanese is a nightmare though.
@@marikothecheetah9342 If you can pronounce double consonants in Italian and long vowels in most European languages, they shouldn't be a problem. They may sound intimidating if you overmysticize them.
@@marikothecheetah9342 Pitch accent is something else entirely and it's definitely not a matter of life and death in Japanese unless you want to sound like a native, in which case good luck learning any language.
@@Tukemuth "When dictionaries give pitch accent, they'll usually indicate it with a number. The number tells you the mora where the last high pitch is." - yeah, totally different. And yes, I do want to speak like a native, what's wrong about it"? :/
In my part of Norway the Navaho and Welch sound is used. The tongue should be pressed to the teeth at one side of the mouth and the lips are closed on that side. The sound comes out at the other side of the half open mouth.
Hehe. 9:40 reminds me of the legend that the Flemish in the war against the French in early 14th Century, had their password be "schild en vriend". Those who had trouble pronouncing it correctly had their head cut off.
As a native English speaker learning Polish, it's safe to say that I quickly started finding the word "sixths" really easy to pronounce in its entirety
Hey, I'm Polish and for me Hungarian "gy", "ty" are easy to pronounce. The hard part of Hungarian pronunciation are volwels. You see, Hungarian "a" is between Polish "a" and Polish "o". Hungarian "o" is between Polish "o" and "u". And vice versa: Polish "a" is between Hungarian "a" and "á", Polish "o" is between Hungarian "a" and "o".
I was learning Japanese before i quit but learning that fu sound as super easy. the moment they said the sound is between a h and a f i mate the correct sound quickly and accurately first try.
How many of these impossible languages do you know? 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/2rxA-GBYJb0/v-deo.html
as a slovak i can easily say the czech r with the thing
1. French
2. Danish
3. Japanese
4. Sindhi
5. Arabic
6. Polish
7. Icelandic
8. Czech
9. Wari
10. Navajo
11. Georgian
12. Zulu
13. Maori
@@PhilipODette lil bro is lying
I feel honored to know that you included Sindhi language in your video as it's my mother tongue. Meherbani awanh ji ta awanh Sindhi khe unji ehmiyat dini 🇵🇰😊
A large swathe of the sounds exist in various dialects of different languages. I wonder how many natural sounds modernist scholars working to make up some standard tones have eliminated. The modern sovereign state is an artificial barrier to human solidarity and harmony.
I'm Russian and used to have lisp when i was a kid and pronounced "s" like "th". Good to know that it helped later to learn English. My classmates were struggling with "th" but not me.
That definitely became a brag later in life! Meanwhile I’m a native English speaker but when I was younger I used to be terrible at pronouncing numerous sounds, especially the “th” sound (I don’t remember what other sounds but I do remember that I had to do speech exercises to kind of correct my pronunciation so I’m assuming I struggled at more than just the “th” sound). It wasn’t very helpful especially considering the fact that my name has that sound in it. Anyway the point is this comment brought back memories of me explaining to people that I couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound when introducing myself.
Also sorry for this comment being so long
@sampanda407 I couldn't say alleluja (Polish eq. of hallelujah) for the life of me. Every other damn word, no matter how difficult - I could pronounce, including a tongue twister: Konstantynopolitańczykiewiczówna - I was nailing it every time, but not that damn alleluja. I pronounced it as: ayeyuja XD It was a short lived issue, but still. I guess everybody had some issues with pronouncing words in their native languages but they simply don't remember. Also, I am an English teacher and one of the first things I teach is... pronunciation of th :D
😂
Ekimin ekijuz jiyrma
It's just don't came out properly
Они все лошпеды, бро. Ты перед рождением ввёл рандомный читкод, видимо
My mother - a native English speaker - often used to hum the sounds for the phrase "I don't know" rather than say the actual words.
Shouldn't your mom be already good at saying I don't know because she's a native English speaker?
@@Finity_twenty_ten well if you know a language well you dont have to pronounce things well to understand, and its faster
I do that too. Lol
@@bywonlineno fr
@@reneedumont2474you might be his mom 😂
I’ve taught scores of Japanese people to pronounce “6th“ over the years, and there’s no process more guaranteed to produce tears of joy. It can be done folks!
Just curious, which version of 6th? The English one (where the "x" is rendered as a simple "k" instead of "ks") is quite a bit easier than the other versions where the entire "ksth" string is retained.
As a native American English speaker, I personally pronounce "sixth" like "sixed", only in professional cases I actually pronounce "sixth" correctly.
Other hard words for my Japanese friends to pronounce: jelly roll and rollerblade.
@@mxRian4 jerii rooru, roraaa bureido - easy 🤪
@@tbirdparis - What do you mean by "[t]he English one (where the "x" is rendered as a simple "k" instead of 'ks')"? Are you saying that in England people pronounce the word _sixth_ as /sɪkθ/ rather than /sɪksθ/? I'm from the US, and I've certainly never heard anyone pronounce the word that way.
For whatever reason "R" seems to be the hardest sound in every language. Except if you're British then it barely exists.
But a common speech defect in English accents is to pronounce the 'r' as a 'w'.
'R' certainly exists in Scottish accents.
I agree. I've tried to explain to people how to pronounce the German r in e.g. "hart" and that it's different from r following a consonant as in e.g. "treffen". The latter seems to be a lot easier as it has an actual sound whereas the r in "hart", "stark", "fahren" etc. is quite elusive.
That always surprised me. I can say British, Italian, French and Belgian R with no problems. WerRy stRainჯ
Does it ~ baely ~ exist?
@@YuliaHadassahK doesn't it almost prolong the vowel before it? In treffen this is more the back tongue r. Can't describe these, I can only pronounce them :P
As a Russian I find in Czech more challenging distinction between long vs. short vowels, rather than Ř.
For Russian the emphasis (ударение) is the most difficult part of the language. In Polish on every penultimate syllable. In Russian very irregular and unpredictable.
@@alfonsmelenhorst9672 yes, the "shifting" accent, my nightmare, when I was learning Russian XD Polish has predominantly stable accent on the second to last syllable in words. If the word has only two syllables the accent is on the first one, obviously. Not talking about dialectal varieties, of course, but standard version of Polish.
Ah yes - plast vs plášť :D
Really? Thats truly interesting. Ive never considered our vowel lenght to be unique among the Slavic languages but I guess youre right.
As a Pole the "ř" is very easy cuz in Polish we have the same sound and it's "ź"
as Polish, id like to correct some things:
1. first phrase is a tongue twister, hard even for poles.
2. if u say prosię instead of proszę, everyone will understand you, we rather use word świnia to call a pig, prosię is a small pig.
3.the last phrase is also a tongue twister, but i never heard that before
But "proszę" vs. "prosię" is a common source for Polish puns and jokes, right?
@@andyjay729 no, its not
@@sos-u5r Prosi to się świnie
Me as Czech, I can't even hear a difference between SZ and Ś and also CZ and Ć.
@@pozitroncz8679There is a difference - "sz" is harder, "ś" is softer. 🙂
I’ve studied Spanish, Arabic, Esperanto, Chinese, and Portuguese, and the only one i’ve ever struggled with at all in terms of pronunciation, or ever received any negative feedback from native speakers in, is Arabic. Pronunciation has always been my best skill in language, and even in languages i haven’t studied i’ve been able to impress native speakers by my imitation skill. But Arabic has been a totally different, humbling experience..
As an Arab, I can confidently say that it’s almost impossible to sound like a native if you are not native. Our language is just too hard phonetically.
And we Arabs can imitate most sounds of other languages easily, even if it doesn’t exist in our language. Our throats and tongues are already well trained. For example in this video the only sound I genuinely couldn’t imitate was the Czech R.
@@Ahmed-pf3lgsorry to say that but even Arabic speakers can struggle with the pronunciation of other languages. I am always skeptical of general statements like these.
Why are you learning so many languages?
@@margedtrumper9325 he said: the MOST sounds. Someday my Arabic friend said the same.
@@annettg1202 I don't have this impression. Tell me any Arabic native speaker who sounds like a native in all languages as he claims. I have come across languages with far more difficult sounds anyway
Polish is such a beautiful language… I gave up learning it early on. Maybe I’ll revisit it.
tr again! :)
I'm from England and have always pronounced the "th" sound just as a regular "f" sound, it's how i naturally grew up and learned it, for my whole life no one has ever mentioned or questioned it either
You're my hero. I'm a Russian and TH was the most fucked thing I ever struggled with in my school days.
We dont have that shht in Russian, and no articles either))
@@AndreiBerezin
Russian actually had a letter for Th, similar to Greek Θ. But it was pronunced like F, so eventually it was axed as unnecessary.
I'm glad to hear that, dude, because I don't think I'll ever understand what “th” is, so I'm gonna be throwing “F's” around, too.
TBH I think the only people who are bothered by pronunciation of "th" are English teachers - I've been in many different parts of UK yet almost all of them had different pronunciation of "th" and even me, nonnative speaker, it was easy to pick up, so the differences have to be huuuuge.
@@AthanasiosJapanYes some letters have changed in how they are transliterated.
/θ/ used to be transcribed as Ф but now as T
/ɦ/ used to use Г now X
I teach Hindi to Italians and it's always fun to have them notice how the retroflex ra (ड़) sound is present in the Venetian dialect too...
Wow!
La "R di Marghera"?
As a Georgian I was genuinely happy to see Georgian language here
Gamarjoba from the Ř country. 👋
@@siebensunden Gosh, "ř" mentioned
Georgian sounds like it was seriously taken from prehistoric times and don't mean it in a bad way - when I hear linguists talking about Proto-Indo-European, I think of Georgian for some reason, it just feels like a time machine. Greetings!
Georgian pronunciation is not that hard
Same!
"Ř" is really crazy... so Poles got rid of it a couple of centuries ago and replaced it with an ordinary Ż (but they continue writing it as "rz").
By the way, Ř in Czech often becomes voiceless, typically after another voiceless consonant.
It sounds like a J to me. I don’t get it.
@@Ahmed-pf3lg it's a lot harder than J, with tongue vibration
That's why in Polish there is one sound that can be spelled as "ż" or as "rz", depending on word's etymology. A real struggle for Polish kids at school.
I'm a learner of Polish. For some strange reasons, I didn't struggle much when I started learning this sound, despite it also doesn't exist in my mother tongue, Thai. Probably thanks to my teacher and my Polish friends.
Slavic languages in general are tough for englishmans, since their language is maded up, they are same as niemcy.
What about Russian? The famous "Ы" sound (it exists also in Polish and Romanian, but not in the same exact form), hard and soft consonant pairs for almost all consonants (and always making minimal pairs!), dark L before vowels, strong vowel reduction (especially of "O"), assimilations of consonants, unpredictable stress patterns (unlike Polish or Czech), even pairs of words with the same exact orthography, but different stress...
miagki /tviordy znak + yery
for me hardest part in Russian is the intonation, you ve to learn for each word, in Polish is always second last syllable, whereas Czech always first: btw medieval Polish was like Czech!
@@walterweiss7124 Czech is tricky as well: this stress on the first syllable can be completely obscured by a long vowel elsewhere in the word.
@@watchmakerful In English there are long vowels in unstressed syllables too, e.g. avatar /ˈæv.ə.tɑː/.
Мне кажется, что "ы" среди славян больше всех распространен в украинском. Практически везде, где мы говорим "и", они говорят "ы"
Ejectives in Georgian are difficult. But strangely enough, some ejective pronunciation of certain consonants has been creeping its way into many English dialects relatively recently. People are increasingly making their "k" sounds ejective, with quite a distinct click to it, when trying to make emphasis.
I try to learn Georgian and I also noticed this in my English! Although its not my native language, and I dont use the ejectives in German
My father unknowingly makes ejective consonants relatively often in his speech at the end of words, especially at the end of sentences. He makes an ejective k, t, and p (and probably more) pretty often.
As an Arab, the Georgian sounds were a piece of cake for me lol
So for me as a German the ejectives like k', t' or ts' are not that difficult. With this q', I'm not sure if it would be pronounced as the "qaf" in Arabic or only with a glottal stop. And the kh is the most difficult so I can't pronounce
Thank you for sharing my video! I'm represented in the Navajo language portion of this video!
Polish: "you have to say very simillar sounds next to each other"
English: hold my beer with "-sth"
See also "sch" in Dutch. Thankfully they have the good sense to only pronounce the "s" when it's at the end of a word.
@@TangoKilo3 yes, I missed Dutch here
even for Poles over pronouncing words sound weird, so those tongue twisters are usually used as a flex, that we achieved mastery, or "mistrzostwo"
PS. yes, we really do hate vowels xD
@@walterweiss7124 I was waiting for him to say something like gefeliciteerd or another word with the guttural g
Czech's fricated r is how I used to pronounce the trilled r before I learned how to do it properly
It sounds like a J to my ears I don’t understand how it’s an R.
@@Ahmed-pf3lg Think of it as a trilled J! Try it - so hard! :)
@@Ahmed-pf3lgthat's why Poles dropped this sound in the 15th century and started to pronounce it either sh or zh
@@Ahmed-pf3lgWhy everyone say it's R it isn't R it's Ř
@@Ahmed-pf3lgIf you thing it's J then you are weird
I've been studying Georgian (used to live there a couple of years ago and will be moving back next month! 🇬🇪) and absolutely love the language. It's so beautiful and rich. I don't have too much trouble with the sounds except for that dreaded ყ sound. I can use it with an "a" vowel afterwards, but definitely struggle with following it with an "i" vowel. Oh well, just gotta practice and practice! ❤
3:54 Ewe is considered on of the most difficult languages in Ghana. It doesn't just do that weird thing to the 'f' sound, it does it to 'd', 'v' and 'p' as well. It gives the language a characteristic sound as if the speaker's mouth is filled with food.
So best way to learn that language is to speak while you eating, funny challenge 😂
@@miloscarapic4502 🤣🤣you know what. this might actually work. time to learn it.
@@miloscarapic4502 It might be. Francophones say Anglophones sound like we're talking with potatoes in the mouth.
As a Georgian learner I can assure you the pronunciation is the easiest part… if you think pronouncing ყ is difficult, wait until you see the verb system 🤣
Fr
As georgian myself, i agree with you 😅
The Tlingit language uses the "ɬ" sound like Navajo. Actually, this sounds is quite common in the native American languages of the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska. Tlingit has an ejective form of ɬ, as well as combinations of it. For example dl, tl, tl'. The language has no L or R sound that is in nearly all languages. It also has a near full set of ejectives, including the back part of the mouth. It is likely to contain sounds in no other language.
@@LangXplorer Thanks for having an interest in the Tlingit language! Certainly the phonology and verb system is the most intimidating aspect. It is a very beautiful and unique language.
The ɬ is one of my favorite sounds, so it is cool to hear it is on the Caucasus languages. It is a part of the world I'm interested in. I found it quite interesting that Georgian phonology had some similar features. The ejective consonants seem to be most common in mountainous regions.
Yeah, I thought so. I guessed Navajo wrong because I knew that sound was in Tlingit.
I also immediately thought of Tlingit! Glad to see it in the comments. I think the -tl sound in the Nahuatl language has a similar tongue position too (and it's in the same language family as Navajo!)
I would have thought Tlingit would have easily made this list. There is even a book called "Sneaky Sounds" that is meant to help with the difficult pronunciation.
I guessed Upper Tanana instead of Navajo or Tlingit because that has the sound too. Although I guess it makes sense since all three languages are grouped in the Athabaskan/Na-Dene language family.
11:52 I'm Greek so the th sound was quite easy to learn because it exists in my language as in "the" is "δ" and the "th" as in thought is "θ"
Hey Ollie, Japanese is definitely one the hardest languages to learn (for English speakers), but the one thing that isn’t that hard is the pronunciation
agreed. Japanese has the EASIEST pronunciation of basically any language.
What makes it difficult for English speakers isn’t exactly the pronunciation, but more so because of the three writing system: Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Similarily, both English and Japanese use intonation depending on the pitch accent
@@lostinstardust4228 The video is specifically about pronunciation though. He isn't talking about the writing systems.
I thought I was good but then I saw "っ" "えい" "おう" and "ん"
@@Okami_gris that’s not easy but I don’t think is enough to warrant a mention in this video
Most people get it wrong when learning foreign sounds. If you can’t hear the sound, you won’t be able to make it. So the first stage is to listen to the language, and gradually you will start to build a representation of it in your brain. Once you have that, you can then start to make it yourself. For some sounds, such as both ch sounds in German, and the ll in Welsh, you might need some help from a native speaker - on UA-cam say - explaining the mechanics. And it often takes time, because you’re training your muscle memory. In other words, your tongue and mouth muscles are having to learn new movements, not unlike learning to ride a bike. In fact, an accent comes slowly, as your hearing and muscle memory improve. Sometimes you can’t make a sound until you get the timing and intonation correct. Even if your accent stinks, keep at it, keep working, you will get there. Oh, and native speakers are often not good teachers, they can be the worst, because it’s natural for them.
I looooove polish! Am learning polish at the moment
"So-che-vi-tsa kowo mee-ele mwy" ;)
And "vwo-swa-vek"
I don't find pronun hard til i hit words like prszeprasam with 4 or 5 consonants in a row haha
This video brought some of my fav language content creators! Glad to see the language appreciation. Subscribed! Looking forward to more
I’m from Poland and I was able to pronounce all the sounds from all the languages first try
same, that’s so easy for me
no u werent
No you werentt
I've gotten like half, maybe a bit more. If you speak our language every day with that pronunciation there will be no problem transitioning to others
I’m a native English speaker but somehow I can make almost all sounds from languages and a bunch of other random sounds
Hi! Where do you have Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic? I think they are fun for both English-speakers and the rest of us😊. Thanks, great videos!
I'd like to say, that Czech consonant {ř} is mostly confused with polish dyphtong {rz}. In Czech {ř} makes sound like a [rʒ] while in Polish {rz} makes just [ʒ]. Recently in Polish existed a dyphtong {rż} that makes the Czech {ř} sound but it exactly has evolved to {rz}. Thete is also a letter {ż}, that also makes the sound [ʒ]. In Polish we have also a letter {ł} that stands for the sound [ŭ] or [w]. Polish is not a language, it's a mind state. And I say it while I'm actually a Pole.
Wrong, the "ř" in czech is [r̝] and the "rz/ż" in polish is [ʐ].
Fun fact. Czech children sometimes learn to say Polish RZ instead of Ř and need to unlearn it.
Great video and I would recommend to you to search the “soft g” sound ONLY found in Turkish. I’m sure it will interest you.
The "sh" sound problem
Japanese Sh=Mandarin X(palatal)
Bulgarian Sh=same as English
Polish Sz=Russian Ш(retroflex)
The linguistic diversity on this one singular planet is absolutely mindblowing.
The Sicilian Language - and yes, it is a language, not a dialect of Italian, has roughly 9 sounds that are not found in Italian. One of the most difficult is DD as in the word “beddu” (beautiful). Even children of Sicilian immigrants have a hard time with it. It is basically like the D in English “good” but with a longer “stop”. This is extremely difficult for non-natives when it is an initial sound as in “ddà” - “there”.
Then there is the R. Similar to the Czech R, the TR, which has variations within it, the STR and the DR, similar but not quite like the DR of English “shrug” and “drug”.
2:08 that guy saying "rawgrawd met flawd" actually hurt me
I say "Sixth" properly. 😁 Icelandic and I think Faroese also have the "Thorn" and "Eth" sounds, as well as that "tl"/"ll" sound in Navajo and Welsh (Tlingit has it too).
That's one of the nice things about Finnish; the pronunciation is very straightforward. It's the case system and consonant gradation that will get you.
The intervocalic T and D in American English in words like better and header is quite a rare sound and difficult to articulate for non-native speakers. I can even tell in movies that it's a British actor playing an American character when he or she sometimes let slip a not so quite genuine rendition of those sounds.
Yes, it’s by far the hardest sound.
From an Arab.
In fact, it’s the only sound I kind of struggle with.
You're talking about the voiced dental/alveolar tap, right? I thought it was a pretty common sound in a lot of languages. I know Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and some other languages use it.
@@katelinakeene7578 It's not exactly the same. The tap is ever more slight and with more aspiration in the American version. But yeah, I get what you mean, it does sound quite similar to the r in some variants of Spanish as well as Japanese, Korean and most dialects of Turkish.
@@elimalinsky7069 That tap sound or something very close, I believe can also be found in many European languages, namely Portuguese, Italian, French, German...
I was pretty shocked that French and English were included in this video, but Hungarian wasn't
Isn't Hungarian pretty phonetic? Albeit with insane grammatical rules
Hungarian is incredibly complicated when it comes to grammar and complexity. But the pronuntcation of the individual sounds itself isnt that difficult or unique compared to other languages in Central Europe.
I was expecting Finnish too at first but we have nothing like the insanity presented on the video.
@@thermn8rIt is, but there are sounds that are hard, like a, e, é, í, ó, ő, ű and gy.
@@ihavenoidea2736 they're all pretty easy. you just have to remember to pronounce the "e"s and "a"s very dark and open and keep track of what vowel is long and short. i can repeat a hungarian word in one try, but to make any sense of the language seems borderline impossible. learning it would be fun, but futile since at least half of all hungarians i've met speak almost perfect german anyway. greetings from austria.
The Navajo ł exists also in Greenlandic! My favorite language! Also in my language, Greek, we use "xth" really much!! We have "θ" and "δ"!!
Danish actually has four standard ways to pronounce d: hard (often in the start of a syllable, such as in "dansk", "Danmark"), soft (as demonstrated on the video, and which derives from an ð, so actually a variant of the th-sound found in English words like "leather"), silent (in front of an s or t as in "spids" or in "mareridt", or occasionally at the end of a word/syllable in some dialects, such as "mord" in Jutlandic) and as an epiglottal stop (often after a konsonant and at the end of a word as in "and" or "ild"). In some Jutlandic dialects, the soft d kan take on the character of a Danish j (similar to y in English) and on the island of Fyn it is often missed out completely. So yeah, we actually have lots of ways to pronounce d.
indeed, german Leder (leather) is quite soft D
@@walterweiss7124 not at all the same as the Danish soft d, which is the voiced dental approximate ð. The German d is always a d.
Cool! If I just leave the d sound out altogether and say I learnt my Danish in Fyn then I ll be right!
@@simplica1 It is a bit more complicated than that, as that only applies to ð, the soft d.
I think tamazight definitely deserves a place in this video :) I'm kabyle and despite hearing my dad speak the language all the time, It took me years to be able to pronounce certain words perfectly, along with the correct accent
the [ ř ] IS a sound you can find in spanish. it's mostly known as "assibilated r" and tend to occur when people with a Andean dialect pronounce word with s and r close together. Well some r at the end of a syllable sometimes turn into a ř, kinda randomly too.
I'm pretty sure some rare dialect in Greece is said to use a variation of it too.
It's also similar with one of the "r" variations we have in Costa Rican Spanish.
I feel the Cyrillic alphabet helps a ton with the unique Slavic sounds, because some letters are a 1:1 match for the sound, unlike Polish which in written form is extremely difficult for English speakers to read aloud with the proper pronunciation
Polish use of latin alphabet is nuts. Czech, Slovak and all the southern Slavic languages use it better. Polish somehow forgot to modernize it with diacritics.
გამარჯობა ოლი! რგორ სარ?
I love that language, favourite word წყალი
By the way I pronounce 6th = sixt
Mind blowing episode! Mind blowing pronunciations!
Ayn is the sound that brings me to frustrated tears in my Arabic lessons xD I'll get it someday
The trick is listening. Listen to regular A then Ayn repeatedly until you hear the difference.
I did the same with B and P until I managed to do it lol
I have some advice for you, and I am of Arab origin, and I am happy to help you with the pronunciation of “ayn” in The Arabic language is that the letter “Ayn” comes out of the muscles that are used for vomiting, that is, from the stomach, if you notice that
@@MohammedWotban OH MY FUCKING GODS THAT WORKS SO WELL THANK YOU
@@MohammedWotban What? No.
Hi from Poland I live in "Pierściec" now try to prounace this. Good luck.
I love your videos. They have tought me many teaching techniches .
I’m Sindhi, and I’ve always thought it had a difficult pronunciation, this coming from someone who grew up speaking it, I also had to learn and am still learning how to pronounce some sounds 😂! But I’m honestly so socked (and happy) that you mentioned it!
First of all, there is a missing letter in this sentence in 9:47:
"Soczewica, koło, miele, młyn" [Lentils, near or wheel, grinds, mill]
Second:
It is a real pity that most linguists never spoke about minority languages. Even when my native is Silesian I would like to share some news about Kashubian. It is a West Lechitic language that sounds awesome, but is hard to speak [Phonologic is more unique compared to other languages from this group]. Here is a sample:
ua-cam.com/video/NAYpp73_qG4/v-deo.html
Pozdrŏwiōm! Chōwcie siã!
Yesss, I'm waiting for some more videos about "unpopular" languages! Especially Silesian
Fun fact: The American NFL player Karl Kasule used to swear in Kashubian to avoid drawing a foul for bad language.
@@robertwilloughby8050 That's awesome and a cool way! 😎😎
this is super interesting but i wish you would show the articulation animation longer or multiple times so we can see how to make these absurd beautiful sounds!!
Is there a video I have specifically for French vowel pronunciations?
I love your videos! (A Finn here.)
This was a fun video! As a kid, I may or may not have been the bored kid in the classroom that would make all kinds of noises with my mouth…and never got caught🤣I thoroughly enjoyed attempting to make all those sounds!
Olly, I just returned, and this time around I learned via Wikipedia that Nexalk is also known by the name Bella Coola, and is on Canada's Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
A few weeks ago, I saw this word on a video here, and was so intrigued, I called the tribal office, and learned the following: Ka:’yu:’K’t’h’/Che:K’tles7et’h’ =
kah-you-kuh-CHECK-ul-seth, which is also on Vancouver Island.
As a danish person who is fluent in english has family in france and thus speaks spme french and is at a conversational level in japanese I see this as a complete win
As a southern Norwegian I always get tripped up by Danish because it's so close but yet so different and I couldn't quite figure out the missing link. Shame I found this video the day after coming home from Denmark, but hopefully I'll remember the tongue trick for next time
North Caucasian languages like Chechen, Lezgian, and Kabardian would like to have a chat
Fr
I didn't expect our language, Japanese, to show up on this list. It's so easy to pronounce, including the "f" sound, which may be more of an "h" sound at times.
Americans have a strange kink with claiming that Japanese is difficult. I've been learning English for 25 years and Japanese for only 15 years, yet I sound completely natural in Japanese and people can't really tell on a phone while I gave up on attempting to sound natural in English - it's just too hard and messy, it feels like the sounds are endless and every word needs a separate pronounceation training, which is just too much
Actually to replicate Japanese accent is pretty easy, much easier than English or Russian with their random stress and up and down intonation and schwa sounds instead of clear vowels.
I once made a constructed language that featured both /θ/ and /r̞/ in a /θr̞/ cluster. Best thing I've ever done 😂
Profile picture checks out
@@katakana1 You know what. That was brilliant haha
I thought i was the only one who made up their own language as a child 😂
@@idylla5972 Haha, me too. I made up my own alphabet so my mom would stop reading my diary.
if you are talking about the Czech "ř" than it's not /r̞/ in ipa but /r̝/
You've pronounced the best ع I ever heard from a non-native speaker.
The danish "soft D" is very much pronounced like the "th" in english words like "though", "these" or "that"
Hard disagree. It's nothing like it. At least most of the time. English "math" doesn't sound like the Danish "mad" at all for example. I think I've only heard it somewhat like the "th" when somebody says "gider" as in "det gider jeg ikke". To non-natives the soft D really sounds much more like an L. It's like trying to make an L sound without letting your tongue touch the top of your mouth. For context, I'm a Dutch person living in Denmark for about 4 years now.
@@IvoB1987 To make a soft d, you have to place the tongue towards the back side of the top front teeth as you would for a hard English th-sound in for example the word either or wither, but not actually make contact with the teeth by moving it downwards. The same sound as @runerain mentions in the words chosen, but a soft d never comes at the start of a syllable. It is actually also pretty much the same tongue placement many languages use to make an l-sound, so maybe this is the root of your confusion? But to a Dane l and soft d sound nothing like each other ;)
@@CrisFromSvartsot most guides and also most people say to put the tongue to the bottom teeth, not the top. Maybe it depends on the region or something. Danish pronunciation really is a huge pain in the ass
@@IvoB1987 Well, you have two Danes telling you pretty much the same thing. The soft d derives from ð, which is the same as the hard English th-sound, as in "leather". Not the soft one in "math". So go to make that sound, but turn the end of the tongue down at the last minute. And no, Danish pronunciation is not so bad. The Dutch gutterals are harder ;)
How come you used the cyrillic for f (and greek phi?) When you start talking about "f", at japanese chunk beginning?
Welsh has a few other sounds that are a bit tricky to pronounce, like rh [r̥], mh [m̥], nh [n̥] and ngh [ŋ̊]. For example, my dog is fy nghi [və ŋ̊iː], and in Pwllheli is ym Mhwllheli [əm m̥ʊɬˈhɛli]. Now try Rhedodd fy nghi ym Mhwllheli efo fy nhad (My dog ran in Pwllheli with my dad).
The last one is just amazing. They are also so expressive!
Ollie, I swear I've heard my cat make some of these sounds! 🙃
😄
It seems very difficult for native English speakers to pronounce the nasal sounds of Portuguese, especially the "Ã" like in the words "Pão", "Não", "Então".
Bro we have the same in Polish: "ą" sounds kinda similar to "ã", but we also have "ę" which sounds mostly like (depends on the word) "ew" or "eo"
IF you think reading polish is imposible check "how to read polish or smth" - he's explaning it nicely from a native POV. And consonant clusters are much easier then it looks ;)
languages of Northern Caucasus next please
3:57 i learned to do that sound by myself by just reading an article im pretty sure. you can make it if you combine the sound p and h makes. the sounds also the reason why some words in english that contain the f sound are written with ph. it comes from old greek
Wow, I never expected Polish on this list. Here is the tip to differenciate sz and si. It's not really about mouth shape.
When pronouncing si, your tongue should be positioned for saying "eee" like in "sheet", but while making si sound the tongue should be even more lifted closer to the palatum leaving very tiny gutter going along your tongue. If you can do german "Ich" you're very close. Just close your jaw and it'll do.
For sz, the tongue needs to curl backward like for indian r or d. Or you can just transform english sh into sz by curling the tip of your tongue back to the middle of your palatum.
Maybe it helps someone. Good luck ✨
The “Ы” sound in Russian is pretty hard for foreigners too. Probably the closest thing to it in English can be found in the phrase “go with it” (the second “i” sound)
@MrMirville You mean something like the E in 'VErmont' or 'dElusion'?... just asking...
This vowel can be hard for english speakers. But in Scandinavian languages, for example, it is quite common.
If I understand correctly, that's just the way /ɪ/ is usually pronounced in New Zealand. Not hard for me at all!
8:22 Actually in arabic we have something called قلقلة qalqala which is emphasising certain sounds and pronouncing them at the back of your throat so we know how to make this sound also
I just make a regular English "f" sound when I want to say the syllable "fu" in Japanese. I can make the trilled "r" sound (famously used in Spanish), even at the end of a word, and can do the rounded and nasal vowels of French. The French "r" is the one sound in that language that I really can't do, I wonder how I sound to native speakers when I try to approximate it. Making foreign consonant and vowel sounds as a native English speaker is always a lot of fun. I particularly like the clicks of southern African languages, such as Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's first language).
The Welsh town of Machynlleth stumps many English speakers. It uses the throat-clearing CH sound (very common in Klingon I believe) followed quickly by the LL sound and a TH to round off. I can do it!
Mongolian also has that sound that exists in Welsh and Navajo.
Wow, that's cool!
I think Icelandic has it as well
The visuals are amazing.
i feel proud to be able to pronounce famous czech "r" (i'm polish btw)
Me too, I am Bulgarian though.
How similar is it to Polish “rz”?
@@hiberniancaveman8970
Nowadays there's no difference in pronouncation between Rz and Ż. Until XVII century Rz used to sound exactly like Ř. Now it's a relic in some dialects like Masurian.
@@AW-dt8ct *Now it's a relic in some vernacular languages like Masurian, Kashubian, and Silesian. 😁😁
i think i as a swedish person managed to produce some of these sounds! my roommates are probably wondering why i'm doing weird random noises in the middle of the night.
I'm Albanian, we actually have TH as a separate letter to T.
Same in Arabic
I have always had an interest in languages and pronounciation of other letters, so a lot of these I was already able to pronounce which was fun to learn since I do not apply it much due to English.
We don’t have American grey squirrels in France like you have in the England 😊 we still have our native reds
We still have reds in England, just far fewer than we have invasive Americans
I love Danish. ❤ I think the easy grammar makes up for the difficulty with pronunciation.
0:12 gllqx’ 😂😂😂
I’ve heard this word a few times before
Some words in Circassian (or Adygea) are also very hard to pronounce
Czech pronuncation is easy for me, because I'm Polish.
After seeing this video, I think I will never complain when learning German again. 😀
The sixth bit got me thinking about a fun word in swedish. When something is from a place you can denote it by an "-skt" suffix like "Stockholmskt" (something from Stockholm). This means you can technically say something from the west coast is "Västkustskt". Because it's so hard to pronounce people usually just say "från västkusten" instead
I think Slavis languages are hard to pronounce as a Korean American
I knew x!óõ (Taa) would be here, it’s my favourite language, I mean I’m a British 14 year old so I don’t have a chance of speaking it but I think it sounds amazing.I think the term khoisan is a tad outdated because it groups together completely unrelated languages just because of region but im not entirely sure. A Good video though, it’s a language far too few know about.
12:38 - yeah, Irish has this sound too. It's the slender "r", which is notorious amongst learners.
I could be wrong, but I believe that's further forward. If I'm not mistaken, the Czech sound is made with the tip of the tongue against the gum ridge, while the Irish sound is made with the blade of the tongue there. There is, of course, some variation among Irish dialects. I'm ready for correction or confirmation.
@@angreagach I'm Czech. You are right with the czech "ř". :-) Btw, there are another difficult sounds for the English speakers in Czech: c, č, ď, h, ch, ň, ř, š, ť and ž. All of the vowels in Czech can be short (a, e, i, o, u, y) and long (á, é, í, ó, ú or ů, ý) and their length not depend on accent, which is valid - for the example - in Russian. Length and accent are in Czech two different and independent categories.
One thing that really makes it hit home how amazing the human brain is when it comes to languages is ironically learning computer programming and specifically how compilers work. We have symbols (letters) that can be pronounced in countless different ways and even if mispronounced, the listener can commonly still understand what's being said and when it comes to writing the symbols can be switched around, left out and replaced with others quite extensively and still be intelligible. We can even say the exact same thing but convey different meaning through tone of voice and even further by adding facial expressions and body language. When writing software on the other hand, you can't make a single mistake before the compiler get's tripped up.
Pero si el Japones es de los mas faciles de pronunciar, claro hay sonidos que no existen en nuestros respectivos idiomas nativos pero aun asi el Japones tiene una pronunciacion muy simple
Y no estuvieron los idiomas sudafricanos como el Zulu, Xhosa, Swati o Ndebele que tambien cuentan con clicks, y una gran variedad de consonantes y vocales, o algunos del caucaso como el Abjasio, Checheno, Avar o Circasiano (que con por mucho mas dificiles de pronunciar que el Georgiano y tienen mas sonidos eyectivos)
Por experiencia propia intente estudiar varios idiomas del caucaso y puedo confirmar esto, el mas dificil para mi fue el Abjasio por la cantidad de fonemas raros y dificiles que tiene, ademas como el Georgiano o el Circasiano el Abjasio tambien carece de vocales
Esto no lo saben muchos, pero otro dificil es el Mazateco, especificamente el dialecto de Xalapa, es tonal, tiene +20 vocales, sonidos eyectivos y sonidos silbados, creo que este tambien podria considerarse como dificil
Pero los idiomas sudafricanos sólo tienen unos pocos sonidos de clic, a diferencia de los idiomas khoisan.
@@lisamarydew Si, obvio casi nadie tiene tantos clicks como los idiomas khoisan, pero los idiomas sudafricanos que mencione igual son mas dificiles de pronunciar que muchos de los mencionados en la lista
The last language was so abstract. 200 sounds - wow!
Japanese is one of the easiest languages pronunciation wise (the bilabial fricative literally takes seconds to learn). Everything else in Japanese is a nightmare though.
How are your moras? :)
@@marikothecheetah9342 If you can pronounce double consonants in Italian and long vowels in most European languages, they shouldn't be a problem. They may sound intimidating if you overmysticize them.
@@Tukemuth but... moras aren't about prolonging vowels or glottal stops... they are about pitch accent...
@@marikothecheetah9342 Pitch accent is something else entirely and it's definitely not a matter of life and death in Japanese unless you want to sound like a native, in which case good luck learning any language.
@@Tukemuth "When dictionaries give pitch accent, they'll usually indicate it with a number. The number tells you the mora where the last high pitch is." - yeah, totally different. And yes, I do want to speak like a native, what's wrong about it"? :/
In my part of Norway the Navaho and Welch sound is used. The tongue should be pressed to the teeth at one side of the mouth and the lips are closed on that side. The sound comes out at the other side of the half open mouth.
Hehe. 9:40 reminds me of the legend that the Flemish in the war against the French in early 14th Century, had their password be "schild en vriend". Those who had trouble pronouncing it correctly had their head cut off.
As a native English speaker learning Polish, it's safe to say that I quickly started finding the word "sixths" really easy to pronounce in its entirety
Hungarian "gy" is also difficult to pronounce for non-native speakers.
so is the Hungarian "ty".
Hey, I'm Polish and for me Hungarian "gy", "ty" are easy to pronounce. The hard part of Hungarian pronunciation are volwels. You see, Hungarian "a" is between Polish "a" and Polish "o". Hungarian "o" is between Polish "o" and "u". And vice versa: Polish "a" is between Hungarian "a" and "á", Polish "o" is between Hungarian "a" and "o".
I was learning Japanese before i quit but learning that fu sound as super easy. the moment they said the sound is between a h and a f i mate the correct sound quickly and accurately first try.