The chaos of English pronunciation

This is a fun poem about the chaos of the English language by Gerard N. Trenité. There are many different versions of this poem. This poem was first published as an appendix to his book Drop your foreign accent . It was a book of pronunciation exercises for students learning British pronunciation. The book was first published in 1909. The Chaos first appeared in the 1920 edition. With each successive edition of the book, the poem was expanded. The most complete version can be found on the website of The English Spelling Society (http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php). That version is 274 lines.

Don't worry about understanding the poem - there is no meaning! It's just a fun collection of many of the ridiculous irregularities of English spelling! Just listen to the pronunciation. Most native speakers would have difficulty pronouncing all these words, so don't worry if you find it difficult.

Finally you will find that some of the words at the end of a line don't rhyme. It is due to the fact that the poem is read with American English pronunciation, and not British English, as the poem was initially meant for.



H/T Teacher Melanie.

Pronunciation poem

This is an anonymous poem about how strange English spelling is. Joanne Rudling commented on it on one of her recent blogs posts.

Self-study activity:
Read the poem aloud to find out for yourself how well you manage with the poem.
Then download and listen to the recording that Joanne has made, compare and work on the words that might have caused you some difficulty.

Finally, make a point of dropping by Joanne Rudling's blog on a regular basis to get further insight on the intricacies of English spelling.

I take it you already know

Of tough and cough and dough?
But what about, hiccough, thorough and through?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,

And dead: it's said like bed, not bead --
For goodness sake don't call it 'deed'!

Watch out for meat and great and threat...
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
(meat-suite, great-straight, threat-debt.)

There isn't a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, or broth in brother,

And here is not in there
But ear is in dear and fear
But not in bear and pear;

And then there's dose and rose
But lose, goose and choose,

And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart --
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!

But will I write it before I die?
I hope so, I say with a sigh!

Why is it so hard to learn English?

It is pronunciation practice today.

Would you be so kind as to read out loud the sentences below? They summarise the difficulties of English pronunciation for learners, even advanced ones.

1 The bandage was wound around the wound.
2 The farm was used to produce produce.
3 The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4 We must polish the Polish furniture.
5 He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6 The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7 Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8 A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9 When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10 I did not object to the object.
11 The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12 There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13 They were too close to the door to close it.
14 The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15 A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16 To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17 The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18 After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19 Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20 I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21 How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

To check the pronunciation, which on the picture below, which will direct you to the blog Bad English. Here you will find an audio file with the sentences being read out. You can download the file.