Right!? And growing up in a place with lots of earthquakes, I was always confused as to why “epicenter,” was pronounced like it’s spelled, but then “epitome” isn’t. Why isn’t it epi-tome?
Never mind, looked it up myself. Apparently epitome came to the English language through the medieval French version of the word, which has an accent and the “e” at the end - while our spelling of it remains mostly the same, that does change the pronunciation.
I have this problem ordering a croissant from Temporary Foreign Workers at coffee drive thrus, there’s a sliding scale of pronouncing croissant properly and butchering it with a western Canadian drawl and you have to guess at which point this guy who spends 80% of his day speaking Tagalog is going to understand what you want.
It’s a French word. So the letters make different sounds compared to English. There not made up sounds, you just need to educate yourself and realise others do it differently.
Nope. Your "aw" is a diphthong, meaning a vowel that morphs into another vowel with time. The French "in" is not a diphthong; you can hold it indefinitely. But it's a nasal vowel with no equivalent in English. Languages are weird.
No, it's more like "new'mow'nee'ah'. P is silent like in many other English words and the "eu" is prononced "u" , not "oe" like in toe / joe.
*flies away*
https://youtu.be/wfVCxnvX66c
*flies away*
just kill me
Segues
Worcestershire
Cliché
Lieutenant