語言世界: 英國人都覺得難發音的十個單詞
A poll of its members found 10 words that Britons consistentlyfind the most challenging to pronounce.
在一個投票裏，英國人選出10個他們認爲發音最有挑戰性的單詞。The word we find hardest to pronounce is ‘phenomenon’。
最難發音的單詞是“phenomenon(現象)”。Next in the top 10 of tongue-twisters are ‘remuneration’, and‘statistics’。
在十大饒舌單詞裏，緊跟着的是“remuneration(酬金)”和“statistics(統計)”。
Speakers also have a problem getting their tongue aroundethnicity, hereditary and particularly, according to the bodycharged with recording public utterances。
根據公共話語有關人體發音的記錄，說話者在說“ethnicity(種族地位)”“hereditary(遺傳的)”“particularly(特別地)”這幾個詞時都有舌頭很難轉動的問題。Completing the list are conjugal, specific, processes anddevelopment。
列表餘下的單詞有“conjugal(婚姻的)”“specific(特殊的)”“processes(過程)”“development(發展)”。Leah Willersdorf, of the BIVR, said: ‘We work with manydifferent types of professionals and hear all kinds of voicesduring our work.’
英國某研究所專家表示“我們跟很多不同專業的人合作，聽過多種聲音。”‘However, when it comes to the English language it always seems tobe the same few words that verbally trip people up, with thespeaker having to repeat the word in order to get it right, or justabandoning their attempts and moving on.’
“然而，當我們研究英語時，我們發現總有幾個單詞人們發音時都會被它們絆倒，說話者要重複該單詞以糾正發音，又或者直接不說這些單詞，繼續他們的話題。”The poll of tongue twisters was in response to a query by themakers of Scrabble who say one in ten players are reluctant to usewords they cannot pronounce。
饒舌單詞投票是由拼字遊戲(Scrabble)製作者編制的，他說，十分之一玩家如果覺得這個單詞難發音，他們就不願意使用。University of York sociolinguistics expert Professor Paul Kerswillsaid the English language has evolved to compensate for trickypronunciations but some words remain a challenge。
約克大學社會語言學專家表示，英語已經進化了一些聽起來很可笑的發音的單詞，但是有些單詞仍然是一個挑戰。He said: ‘People always find a way of simplifying words that theyfind difficult to get their tongues round, so that an everyday wordlike ‘handbag’ sounds like ‘hambag’。
他說：“人們總會發現一些很常用的單詞很難轉動舌頭來發音，就比如我們日常的單詞‘handbag(手袋)’，聽起來就像‘hambag’。”‘Our forebears simplified ‘waistcoat’ to ‘weskit’ – but we’veturned our backs on that。
“我們的祖先簡化了‘waistcoat(馬甲、背心)’成爲‘weskit’，但我們卻對此呲之以鼻。”試試看你讀得順口不 phenomenon n. 現象；奇蹟；傑出的人才
remuneration n. 報酬；酬勞，賠償
statistics n. 統計；統計學；[統計] 統計資料
ethnicity n. 種族劃分
hereditary adj. 遺傳的；世襲的；世代相傳的
particularly adv. 特別地，獨特地；詳細地
conjugal adj. 婚姻的；結婚的；夫妻之間的
specific adj. 特殊的，特定的；明確的；詳細的
process n. 過程，進行；方法，步驟
development n. 發展；開發
英語單詞： trip up 絆倒；挑剔
forebear n. 祖先；祖宗
turned one’s backs on 拒絕幫助
