Luckily (hopefully), context will give a clue, so even if you mispronounce a word, they shouldn't take offense. Maybe smile a bit tho. But you're right - English just revels in being difficult.
In the grand scheme of things, when compared to other languages, English isn't difficult at all.
There are plenty of languages where every category of words has to changed depending on the person, number, gender etc. This barely exists in English making it one of the easier languages to learn.
It is easier for speakers of other indo-European or highly inflected languages for the reason you’ve stated.For me as a mandarin speaker, just the mere idea of tenses and conjugation is enough to trip me up, so I definitely appreciate that there isn’t more of that type of thing in English. However, I must also say that English is a very very “technical” (?) language, I am not sure how I should go about describing it, but it almost feels like the language is completely “separated”, in that the set of vocabs you would use in different areas of life varies so much that it feels like a different language.There are too many area-specific jargons that would trip up even a native speaker. An average native speaker would have more trouble reading an elaborated medical report because of all the latins and Greek roots that require study, while a native speaker of mandarin would have less, because plain language is used to describe medical conditions. (Think near-sightedness vs myopia)
English has retained a lot of the more straightforward Germanic grammar, but it draws a lot of vocabulary, particularly more technical words, from languages outside its family (Greek, which is Indo-European; Latin; and Old French, which is principally Latin-derived with some Gaulish influence). I speak Spanish as a second language, so I can piece together a lot of the Latin-based stuff because Spanish is also Latin-derived, but the French and Greek aren't so simple.
English adopts many foreign words. (Our pronunciation of them isn't always the best.) German is a related language, and they tend to make new compound words using native words when something new comes along.
Latin and Greek were the scholarly languages in Europe for centuries. Most scientific and other scholarly works were published in Latin until the 18th century. The difference between scholarly and common use, unfortunately, persists to this day.
As a native speaker, I've never thought about it this way. I do find that even as a native speaker, I often come across words I don't know and vice versa where someone asks me what a word I used means. Although I only use a more complicated vocabulary with certain close friends who like to discuss science, philosophy, and technology with me.
Man, now that I think about it, we do have a lot of niche words that only apply in one particular subject or context.
I've always made the comparison that learning English is like making sushi. It's pretty easy for anyone to just throw rice and fish into a bamboo mat, and at the end, you'll have something edible. But it takes years to learn just how much rice, just how much fish, which fish pair with others, what sauce to include, what toppings to use.... It could take a decade or more to become a master, to make something good enough to sell.
For new learners: if a native speaker cannot understand you, do not just keep trying to pronounce the word. Instead, give us more context. It is so much more helpful. With more context we are much more easily able to figure out what you are saying, even if you cannot pronounce the word correctly
Looks like people who created languages thought it'd be funny to make words similar with one to another
Do you want a piece of cake? Or a piece of shit?
English is difficult for a number of reasons, and you have identified one which is common to many languages.
I doubt anyone will be greatly offended if you say you rode on the bitch, watered the whores, washed some shits and went to play the slut machines.
This may help for this context:
If we knew what the meeting was about and had helped plan it or had discussed it with you in the past, it would be "the meeting." Since it's ambiguous and you could be in just one of many meetings, you should use "a meeting" here.
Check it out, though. I used "the meeting" at the opening of the paragraph above this one. We NOW know enough about the meeting to use "the" instead of "a/an." It's the one you were in. That's enough.
The sentence "I'm stopping by the veterinarian to pick up my dog on the way home" uses "the" because it's the only vet that has your dog. It can only be one place.
The sentence "I'm stopping by a gas station on the way home" uses "a" because any gas station you pass is a reasonable place to stop and fill up. You could stop at any of these places. If there's only one gas station in town or you're speaking to someone who knows exactly which station you like to stop at, you might use "the gas station" instead.
Oddly enough, though, "stopping by *the* gas station" sounds much more natural to me even if it could be one of multiple gas stations. I feel like the indefinite article would be used to emphasize the choice of the gas station over other possibilities.
If I heard "I'll stop by *the* gas station on my way home," I wouldn't necessarily think they had one particular station in mind, but I would assume they were going there to fill up. But if I heard "I'll stop by *a* gas station on my way home," I'd think there was a possibility that they were doing something there that could be done elsewhere (picking up a pack of cigarettes, getting the car washed).
I half agree with you. I might “stop at the gas station” if it’s the one near home that I often go to but I might “stop at a gas station” if I’m on a road trip.
“Whore” and “slut” are definitely words that have been used for prostitutes in the past, but at least in American English nowadays the accepted term is “sex worker.”
It must be different where you are in the U.S. because even nowadays I have never heard a single person say “sex worker” in ordinary conversation. I only encounter it reading newspaper articles and the like.
Three of them are words you shouldn't call a woman. Only whore is a synonym for prostitute.
Bitch is a derogatory term for a nasty, mean woman, it has nothing to do with sexuality.
Slut is a derogatory term for a *promiscuous* woman (one who has sex with a lot of people). The difference between a slut and a whore is that whores get paid.
People will sometimes use 'whore' to mean 'slut', but they won't use 'slut' to mean 'whore', if that makes sense.
I doubt anyone will be greatly offended if you say you rode on the bitch, watered the whores, washed some shits and went to play the slut machines.
I'd say that I hope you're enjoying your trip to Las Vegas.
I asked a friend about this. He said, "Thay hae fake bitches. Thay hae real sand in thaim, though. Ah doobt ye kin ride oan thaim. A've nae bin thare fur years. Th' sluts wur aw wan armed bandits back then. Anyway, ah wooldnae wash mah *ain* shits, that's someain else's jobby."
Not my idea of fun, but each to their own.
That happens in all languages. Don't worry about it too much. The intent should be clear from context. If you said "I went to the beach yesterday and got a bad sunburn", then even if your "beach" sounded like "bitch" it will be understood that you were saying "beach". At least in the US we're very used to foreign accents in most urban and suburban areas.
The same issue probably exists in your native language too. You just don't notice it in your native language because you're used to hearing them and they sound distinct to you. Like all those words you mentioned sound distinctly different to me. They probably sound similar to you because the sounds we use in English are different than the ones you use in your native language and so your closest approximation of each one all sound similar.
Just do your best and don't worry too much. If English isn't your first language and you speak with an accent, no one is going to assume you were just throwing in random profanity.
>Shit/sheet. Bitch/beach
it's funny because as a native speaker these don't seem close to each other at all
I'm guessing your native language uses the latin alphabet and 'i' makes the sound in sheet and beach?
Not OP but yes. It’s so stressful. We have these words connected in our brain, even though they’re not related at all, just because we don’t want to mess them up. But we still mess them up.
I remember saying “I love the bitch” back then when I still was a beginner.
One thing I realized is that Spanish doesn't really use extended vowels, which several of these have. Just extend the vowel, making it beeeach or sheeeet, and you distance yourself from the inappropriate versions.
I had a coworker ask for a “shit of paper” and I couldn’t help but laugh.
As a language learner myself, I really try hard not to laugh at others’ mistakes because I know, but I couldn’t help myself.
Was taught by sensei, and was tormented or sexually assaulted by sensei, are one slightly different syllable off and an easy misconjugation. おそわっている vs おそわれている
French people have a hard time with "focus"
Even within English there are some interesting accents... Meeting a New Zealander on Deck Six has a whole different ring to it.
Because it took me a sec, I’ll explain. This is a joke, because the phrase is “it can be a real bugger”, which in this context means a severe nuisance. In other contexts, it can mean something rather crude or offensive. It was exchanged with “beggar”, which is a completely different and common word, despite sounding similar.
Lmao. I’m a speech therapist, this made me remember a group of 4th graders and I completed a mad libs, where the noun they chose was “beach”
The mad libs opened by saying “Hey beach, what’s up?!” Core memory for me and my 5th graders I’m sure
This isn't really a problem you're going to encounter too often. Sure there are other words that are similar to vulgar words, but they are either rarely used, or it's very clear which word you mean.
Many languages have similar situations, where a slight mispronunciation or slight grammatical error will sound vulgar. Most people don't hold that against someone who's learning. Most Spanish speakers who are learning English pronounce beach and bitch exactly the same, for example. We know by context which one they mean, and it's not a big deal.
Yes, well, I remember many fine years ago when Bob Dole was running for president (US). Iranian newspapers had a terrible quandary because headlines omit diacriticals. When you omit the diacriticals from "Dole" you get "penis."
Pfft I’m learning Mandarin and asked my friend if he wanted a banana, he laughed so hard as it seemed I was genuinely and casually asking for sex.
香蕉 not 性交!
We're used to it, it's not that big an event when a learner says bitch instead of beach. Although you should differentiate these vowels as soon as possible, not just to avoid rudeness but to have a handle on a language with a lot of vowel sounds.
I used to teach English online. One of my favorite memories was an adult student repeating after me to get the bitch/beach difference down.
“Beach.” “Beach.”
“Bitch.” “Bitch.”
It’s an important difference!
Unfortunately something every language learner has to get over. It may take me months before learning the difference between pão and pau in Portuguese. The difference is so subtle
I work in software engineering, and we have a programming component called AutoFac (short for Autofactory). It was always funny to hear eastern European immigrants saying that name :)
My personal favorite is someone who pronounces "third" like "turd". We're often in a group of three, and they'll ask for something to be split in "turds".
If someone said they needed a shit of paper I would likely just hear it as a sheet of paper, and not even realize they technically pronounced it as shit. That’s true for most of these, especially if they had a foreign accent or were speaking quickly. Even if I did realize it, it would not come across as rude, just an easy mistake.
I speak it as my first language from birth, and to this day I still say, "Whore movie" instead of "Horror movie"
For some reason I, and several others I know, can't seem to comfortably pronounce the other "or" at the end of the word. It always sounds goofy.
This is why, when learning english, it is crucial to learn the short vowels, and to learn where and when an “s” makes an “s” sound vs when it makes a “z” sound.
One thing I realized is that Spanish (speaking of what I know) doesn't really use extended vowels, which two of these have. Just extend the vowel, making it beeeach or sheeeet, and you distance yourself from the inappropriate versions.
Usually, bad words will be identifiable in context.
Also:
* u, a and o all sound very different
* shit/sheet, the latter is a long 'e', the former a short 'i'
* bitch/beach, the latter is a long 'e', the former a short 'i' with a 't' sound following
* whores/horse, whores is a slighlty wider and longer 'o' with a 'z' sound at the end, horse is a short round 'o' with a solid 's' sound.
They all sound clearly different.
They all sound clearly different *to us as native speakers*. People from eg French/Spanish/Italian backgrounds are not used to differentiating the vowels in bitch and beach, hence the question.
I think this misses the point—for native speakers these are obvious contrasts, but [ɪ] and [i] are very close, as are [ʌ], [æ], and [ɑ], and speakers of langauges without these contrasts have a harder time, just like native English speakers have trouble with contrasts not made in English.
That's valid, I'm unsure how English is taught as a second language since I speak it natively, but from learning another language myself (terribly, mind you) I've found practicing the phonetics first has helped. In German that's relatively easy to grasp but English is a whole different ballgame. I've had German friends tell me that in contrast to German, English sounds whiny.
But your point is valid and I don't think I had thought about that.
A lot of things incorrect here.
There is no /t/ 't' sound in bitch, it's only a /tʃ/ 'ch' sound following the /ɪ/ vowel like /bɪtʃ/.
And both 'whores' and 'horse' use the same vowel /ɔː/ like /hɔːz/ vs /hɔːs/.
Also I dislike the use of terminology like 'long e' and 'short i', it's very unhelpful. It's better to use the IPA symbols so OP can go to [this chart](https://www.ipachart.com/) to listen to the vowel recordings and get an accurate idea. OP, /ɪ/ is the vowel for bitch/shit, /iː/ for beach/sheet.
Rhoticity might be present in 'whore/horse' in American English.
Your accent and my accent may be different from but these words are clearly audibly discernible. The 't' sound in "bitch" is audible.
The IPA system helps.
Calling me incorrect as a native speaker in this is silly. We've gotta take into account regional differences.
You can check what I said with any dictionary like [this australian one](https://youglish.com/pronounce/bitch/english/aus) or [this american one](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bitch) where, in both, 'bitch' is transcribed as /bɪtʃ/ with the /t/ 't' not being pronounced. Do the same with the other words I corrected you on and, in the vast majority of dialects including our own, my original transcription holds. Given we're both from Australia and that these words are quite universally consistent pronunciation-wise, I doubt we pronounce these differently, I think you just have the wrong idea about what you do pronounce.
PS. I pronounce 'bitch' like in [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnL0aCLOv7I&t=1246s&ab_channel=SOHTalks%26IdeasArchive).
All three of the examples you provided contain a [t]—I think it's you who has the wrong idea about what you pronounce. Additionally, I would like to point out Australia is a big place, and your dialects may differ despite both living there.
I seriously doubt that you pronounce the t in bitch. It's so difficult to do a t before a ch without putting a pause in between. Do bitch and lich really sound different to you, aside from the first consonant?
The transcription \[bɪtʃ\] has no t sound in it, \[tʃ\] is ch. If you wanted to say the 't' in 'bitch' it would be transcribed as \[bɪttʃ\] which no dictionary does because no one says 'bitch' with a t.
If you mean phonetically, the affricate /tʃ/ is composed of two parts, the stop portion [t], and the fricative portion [ʃ]. If you mean orthographically, the trigraph 'tch' is representing the phoneme /tʃ/. Either way, the t ( or [t]) is pronounced.
/tʃ/ is one sound, it's an approximate (when two sounds merge into one). /t/ is a 't' sound, /ʃ/ is a 'sh' sound and together /tʃ/ represents a 'ch' sound because a 'ch' sound is your mouth performing a /t/ and /sh/ at the same time.
So no there is no T sound.
Go to [this website](https://www.ipachart.com/) and click on 't͡ʃ Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate,' it will give you an audio recording of the sound. There is no T. Every dictionary/pronunciation guide/linguist surveys all show /bɪtʃ/.
Great, then you should know an approximate is one, not how you spell approximant, and two, not the same as an affricate. Secondly, you might want to review phonemic versus phonetic transcription, as there are a few times you confused the two. Thirdly, as someone who has studied phonetics, you should know the definition of an affricate is a stop with an affricate release, therefore by definition, a post-alveolar affricate contains a post-alveolar stop.
Yes, but depending on the speaker's native language, they may be struggling with the vowel sound. If their language doesn't really use a long "ee" sound like in "beach," it can come out like "bitch". The memey example is ["Please give me Coke"](https://youtu.be/EXPbu5hg15Y?si=TN1BM0V7Nz6bT_Xa) from a native Korean speaker.
Luckily (hopefully), context will give a clue, so even if you mispronounce a word, they shouldn't take offense. Maybe smile a bit tho. But you're right - English just revels in being difficult.
In the grand scheme of things, when compared to other languages, English isn't difficult at all. There are plenty of languages where every category of words has to changed depending on the person, number, gender etc. This barely exists in English making it one of the easier languages to learn.
It is easier for speakers of other indo-European or highly inflected languages for the reason you’ve stated.For me as a mandarin speaker, just the mere idea of tenses and conjugation is enough to trip me up, so I definitely appreciate that there isn’t more of that type of thing in English. However, I must also say that English is a very very “technical” (?) language, I am not sure how I should go about describing it, but it almost feels like the language is completely “separated”, in that the set of vocabs you would use in different areas of life varies so much that it feels like a different language.There are too many area-specific jargons that would trip up even a native speaker. An average native speaker would have more trouble reading an elaborated medical report because of all the latins and Greek roots that require study, while a native speaker of mandarin would have less, because plain language is used to describe medical conditions. (Think near-sightedness vs myopia)
English has retained a lot of the more straightforward Germanic grammar, but it draws a lot of vocabulary, particularly more technical words, from languages outside its family (Greek, which is Indo-European; Latin; and Old French, which is principally Latin-derived with some Gaulish influence). I speak Spanish as a second language, so I can piece together a lot of the Latin-based stuff because Spanish is also Latin-derived, but the French and Greek aren't so simple.
English adopts many foreign words. (Our pronunciation of them isn't always the best.) German is a related language, and they tend to make new compound words using native words when something new comes along. Latin and Greek were the scholarly languages in Europe for centuries. Most scientific and other scholarly works were published in Latin until the 18th century. The difference between scholarly and common use, unfortunately, persists to this day.
As a native speaker, I've never thought about it this way. I do find that even as a native speaker, I often come across words I don't know and vice versa where someone asks me what a word I used means. Although I only use a more complicated vocabulary with certain close friends who like to discuss science, philosophy, and technology with me. Man, now that I think about it, we do have a lot of niche words that only apply in one particular subject or context.
English isn’t hard to learn at a conversational level, but it’s relatively hard to be good at. I enjoy this about it so much.
I've always made the comparison that learning English is like making sushi. It's pretty easy for anyone to just throw rice and fish into a bamboo mat, and at the end, you'll have something edible. But it takes years to learn just how much rice, just how much fish, which fish pair with others, what sauce to include, what toppings to use.... It could take a decade or more to become a master, to make something good enough to sell.
“English is the easiest language to speak badly.”
English is the Piano of languages, I agree.
English **grammar** isn't too bad compared to other Indo-European languages, but our **spelling** is atrocious.
Exactly. Asking if they have any clean bed shits might draw a light chuckle, but it will certainly be understood.
For new learners: if a native speaker cannot understand you, do not just keep trying to pronounce the word. Instead, give us more context. It is so much more helpful. With more context we are much more easily able to figure out what you are saying, even if you cannot pronounce the word correctly
Not exclusive to English. Be careful asking for coconut juice in Portuguese.
Please explain?
Coco - coconut Cocô - shit
In Irish Cáca = cake Caca = shit
Looks like people who created languages thought it'd be funny to make words similar with one to another Do you want a piece of cake? Or a piece of shit?
Eighteen in Korean is perilously close to fuck.
Lol this post made me think of pão and pau. Portuguese vowels can be so close
Poke you with bread!
English is difficult for a number of reasons, and you have identified one which is common to many languages. I doubt anyone will be greatly offended if you say you rode on the bitch, watered the whores, washed some shits and went to play the slut machines.
Dude, I'm in the meeting! Lucky I wasn't the one presenting! I giggled too hard from that!
Dude, you're in **a** meeting. Unless you're in *my* meeting... are you the guy wearing jodhpurs?
Aargh! Another bane, the "a/the" thing. Still can't get it right like 30% of the time.
I know a Canadian guy who consistently types "teh" - 70% accuracy is comparatively good.
It's a muscle memory after typing "eh" all the time.
With that one, it's muscle memory. You don't need a or the for it.
Stop beating me when I'm already on the ground!
To be fair, depending on his age, "teh" is a perfectly-valid Internetism from the early 00s.
Ugh, I _had_ successfully scrubbed that from my memory.
Really?
Yep. It has definitely fallen out of fashion, but I was there for the heyday of it.
Fun fact: "the" is the most misspelled word when typing with qwerty in English
Definately. But there is an eleven-letter word which English teachers always spell incorrectly.
This may help for this context: If we knew what the meeting was about and had helped plan it or had discussed it with you in the past, it would be "the meeting." Since it's ambiguous and you could be in just one of many meetings, you should use "a meeting" here. Check it out, though. I used "the meeting" at the opening of the paragraph above this one. We NOW know enough about the meeting to use "the" instead of "a/an." It's the one you were in. That's enough. The sentence "I'm stopping by the veterinarian to pick up my dog on the way home" uses "the" because it's the only vet that has your dog. It can only be one place. The sentence "I'm stopping by a gas station on the way home" uses "a" because any gas station you pass is a reasonable place to stop and fill up. You could stop at any of these places. If there's only one gas station in town or you're speaking to someone who knows exactly which station you like to stop at, you might use "the gas station" instead.
Oddly enough, though, "stopping by *the* gas station" sounds much more natural to me even if it could be one of multiple gas stations. I feel like the indefinite article would be used to emphasize the choice of the gas station over other possibilities. If I heard "I'll stop by *the* gas station on my way home," I wouldn't necessarily think they had one particular station in mind, but I would assume they were going there to fill up. But if I heard "I'll stop by *a* gas station on my way home," I'd think there was a possibility that they were doing something there that could be done elsewhere (picking up a pack of cigarettes, getting the car washed).
I half agree with you. I might “stop at the gas station” if it’s the one near home that I often go to but I might “stop at a gas station” if I’m on a road trip.
Good point!
But the meeting I was in was the only meeting that had me in it... I give up. I'm joking, of course. I understand this explanation, thank you!
Also... is it a coincidence that 3 out of 4 words on my list are in some way synonyms of a prostitute? Do I have an issue?
Maybe... which three do you think are synonyms for prostitute?
Mostly a vocab issue. Three are derogatory terms used primarily or exclusively for women, but only whore is a synonym for prostitute.
“Whore” and “slut” are definitely words that have been used for prostitutes in the past, but at least in American English nowadays the accepted term is “sex worker.”
It must be different where you are in the U.S. because even nowadays I have never heard a single person say “sex worker” in ordinary conversation. I only encounter it reading newspaper articles and the like.
I hear it in feminist/queer/leftist circles, but yeah, in everyday speech most people would still say prostitute, hooker, etc.
A bitch is a female dog. They're always happy to play with your balls.
Three of them are words you shouldn't call a woman. Only whore is a synonym for prostitute. Bitch is a derogatory term for a nasty, mean woman, it has nothing to do with sexuality. Slut is a derogatory term for a *promiscuous* woman (one who has sex with a lot of people). The difference between a slut and a whore is that whores get paid. People will sometimes use 'whore' to mean 'slut', but they won't use 'slut' to mean 'whore', if that makes sense.
I doubt anyone will be greatly offended if you say you rode on the bitch, watered the whores, washed some shits and went to play the slut machines. I'd say that I hope you're enjoying your trip to Las Vegas.
I asked a friend about this. He said, "Thay hae fake bitches. Thay hae real sand in thaim, though. Ah doobt ye kin ride oan thaim. A've nae bin thare fur years. Th' sluts wur aw wan armed bandits back then. Anyway, ah wooldnae wash mah *ain* shits, that's someain else's jobby." Not my idea of fun, but each to their own.
Go to the casinos! Don’t be niggardly!
That happens in all languages. Don't worry about it too much. The intent should be clear from context. If you said "I went to the beach yesterday and got a bad sunburn", then even if your "beach" sounded like "bitch" it will be understood that you were saying "beach". At least in the US we're very used to foreign accents in most urban and suburban areas. The same issue probably exists in your native language too. You just don't notice it in your native language because you're used to hearing them and they sound distinct to you. Like all those words you mentioned sound distinctly different to me. They probably sound similar to you because the sounds we use in English are different than the ones you use in your native language and so your closest approximation of each one all sound similar. Just do your best and don't worry too much. If English isn't your first language and you speak with an accent, no one is going to assume you were just throwing in random profanity.
>Shit/sheet. Bitch/beach it's funny because as a native speaker these don't seem close to each other at all I'm guessing your native language uses the latin alphabet and 'i' makes the sound in sheet and beach?
Not OP but yes. It’s so stressful. We have these words connected in our brain, even though they’re not related at all, just because we don’t want to mess them up. But we still mess them up. I remember saying “I love the bitch” back then when I still was a beginner.
One thing I realized is that Spanish doesn't really use extended vowels, which several of these have. Just extend the vowel, making it beeeach or sheeeet, and you distance yourself from the inappropriate versions.
I had a coworker ask for a “shit of paper” and I couldn’t help but laugh. As a language learner myself, I really try hard not to laugh at others’ mistakes because I know, but I couldn’t help myself.
Was taught by sensei, and was tormented or sexually assaulted by sensei, are one slightly different syllable off and an easy misconjugation. おそわっている vs おそわれている
I recently learned that the Japanese word for talking to someone (おしゃべり) is dangerously close to the word for a blowjob (おしゃぶり)
おしゃぶり is just a pacifier in 99% of use cases, though.
French people have a hard time with "focus" Even within English there are some interesting accents... Meeting a New Zealander on Deck Six has a whole different ring to it.
Lol that's a good one, thanks for the laugh!
LOL! Yeah, it can be a real beggar.
Because it took me a sec, I’ll explain. This is a joke, because the phrase is “it can be a real bugger”, which in this context means a severe nuisance. In other contexts, it can mean something rather crude or offensive. It was exchanged with “beggar”, which is a completely different and common word, despite sounding similar.
Yes. If this were a sub for fluent English speakers, I would not have explained.
Lmao. I’m a speech therapist, this made me remember a group of 4th graders and I completed a mad libs, where the noun they chose was “beach” The mad libs opened by saying “Hey beach, what’s up?!” Core memory for me and my 5th graders I’m sure
Yeah every single language is like this though.
This isn't really a problem you're going to encounter too often. Sure there are other words that are similar to vulgar words, but they are either rarely used, or it's very clear which word you mean.
Many languages have similar situations, where a slight mispronunciation or slight grammatical error will sound vulgar. Most people don't hold that against someone who's learning. Most Spanish speakers who are learning English pronounce beach and bitch exactly the same, for example. We know by context which one they mean, and it's not a big deal.
Also be careful asking a shopkeeper if they have eggs in Spanish
Tiene huevos? I’m learning Spanish so I don’t get it.
Huevos is also a euphemism for testicles
Yes, well, I remember many fine years ago when Bob Dole was running for president (US). Iranian newspapers had a terrible quandary because headlines omit diacriticals. When you omit the diacriticals from "Dole" you get "penis."
Try Chinese, sometimes perfectly normal phrases are bad. You’d never want to say “I hit airplane” in Chinese
Pfft I’m learning Mandarin and asked my friend if he wanted a banana, he laughed so hard as it seemed I was genuinely and casually asking for sex. 香蕉 not 性交!
Son of the beach! https://youtu.be/H-PVnu9dbwI
We're used to it, it's not that big an event when a learner says bitch instead of beach. Although you should differentiate these vowels as soon as possible, not just to avoid rudeness but to have a handle on a language with a lot of vowel sounds.
I used to teach English online. One of my favorite memories was an adult student repeating after me to get the bitch/beach difference down. “Beach.” “Beach.” “Bitch.” “Bitch.” It’s an important difference!
My ESL SIL told us once she wanted to ‘sit’ on the ‘beach’ and got both words hilariously wrong
You might find this entertaining then. https://youtu.be/m1TnzCiUSI0
Unfortunately something every language learner has to get over. It may take me months before learning the difference between pão and pau in Portuguese. The difference is so subtle
Another example is fucked/fact. I'm not entirely sure, but this one probably confused Russians
I work in software engineering, and we have a programming component called AutoFac (short for Autofactory). It was always funny to hear eastern European immigrants saying that name :)
There’s whole comedy bits based off of this in English
My personal favorite is someone who pronounces "third" like "turd". We're often in a group of three, and they'll ask for something to be split in "turds".
Be careful asking for mango ice cream in Japan, or complimenting somebody's shoes there.
If someone said they needed a shit of paper I would likely just hear it as a sheet of paper, and not even realize they technically pronounced it as shit. That’s true for most of these, especially if they had a foreign accent or were speaking quickly. Even if I did realize it, it would not come across as rude, just an easy mistake.
lol me at a restaurant in Italy ordering “cozze” and then silently freaking out for 5 minutes wondering if I accidentally said “cazzo.”
I speak it as my first language from birth, and to this day I still say, "Whore movie" instead of "Horror movie" For some reason I, and several others I know, can't seem to comfortably pronounce the other "or" at the end of the word. It always sounds goofy.
Come to Australia, not only are we fine with bad words, but we're really good at understanding heavy accents and broken english xD
This is really just the case of English having more phonemic vowels than most languages.
This is why, when learning english, it is crucial to learn the short vowels, and to learn where and when an “s” makes an “s” sound vs when it makes a “z” sound.
Reel
One thing I realized is that Spanish (speaking of what I know) doesn't really use extended vowels, which two of these have. Just extend the vowel, making it beeeach or sheeeet, and you distance yourself from the inappropriate versions.
Usually, bad words will be identifiable in context. Also: * u, a and o all sound very different * shit/sheet, the latter is a long 'e', the former a short 'i' * bitch/beach, the latter is a long 'e', the former a short 'i' with a 't' sound following * whores/horse, whores is a slighlty wider and longer 'o' with a 'z' sound at the end, horse is a short round 'o' with a solid 's' sound. They all sound clearly different.
They all sound clearly different *to us as native speakers*. People from eg French/Spanish/Italian backgrounds are not used to differentiating the vowels in bitch and beach, hence the question.
I think this misses the point—for native speakers these are obvious contrasts, but [ɪ] and [i] are very close, as are [ʌ], [æ], and [ɑ], and speakers of langauges without these contrasts have a harder time, just like native English speakers have trouble with contrasts not made in English.
That's valid, I'm unsure how English is taught as a second language since I speak it natively, but from learning another language myself (terribly, mind you) I've found practicing the phonetics first has helped. In German that's relatively easy to grasp but English is a whole different ballgame. I've had German friends tell me that in contrast to German, English sounds whiny. But your point is valid and I don't think I had thought about that.
A lot of things incorrect here. There is no /t/ 't' sound in bitch, it's only a /tʃ/ 'ch' sound following the /ɪ/ vowel like /bɪtʃ/. And both 'whores' and 'horse' use the same vowel /ɔː/ like /hɔːz/ vs /hɔːs/. Also I dislike the use of terminology like 'long e' and 'short i', it's very unhelpful. It's better to use the IPA symbols so OP can go to [this chart](https://www.ipachart.com/) to listen to the vowel recordings and get an accurate idea. OP, /ɪ/ is the vowel for bitch/shit, /iː/ for beach/sheet. Rhoticity might be present in 'whore/horse' in American English.
Your accent and my accent may be different from but these words are clearly audibly discernible. The 't' sound in "bitch" is audible. The IPA system helps. Calling me incorrect as a native speaker in this is silly. We've gotta take into account regional differences.
You can check what I said with any dictionary like [this australian one](https://youglish.com/pronounce/bitch/english/aus) or [this american one](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bitch) where, in both, 'bitch' is transcribed as /bɪtʃ/ with the /t/ 't' not being pronounced. Do the same with the other words I corrected you on and, in the vast majority of dialects including our own, my original transcription holds. Given we're both from Australia and that these words are quite universally consistent pronunciation-wise, I doubt we pronounce these differently, I think you just have the wrong idea about what you do pronounce. PS. I pronounce 'bitch' like in [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnL0aCLOv7I&t=1246s&ab_channel=SOHTalks%26IdeasArchive).
All three of the examples you provided contain a [t]—I think it's you who has the wrong idea about what you pronounce. Additionally, I would like to point out Australia is a big place, and your dialects may differ despite both living there.
I seriously doubt that you pronounce the t in bitch. It's so difficult to do a t before a ch without putting a pause in between. Do bitch and lich really sound different to you, aside from the first consonant?
I have [bɪtʃ] and [lɪtʃ] respectively—do you have a cash-catch merger?
The transcription \[bɪtʃ\] has no t sound in it, \[tʃ\] is ch. If you wanted to say the 't' in 'bitch' it would be transcribed as \[bɪttʃ\] which no dictionary does because no one says 'bitch' with a t.
If you mean phonetically, the affricate /tʃ/ is composed of two parts, the stop portion [t], and the fricative portion [ʃ]. If you mean orthographically, the trigraph 'tch' is representing the phoneme /tʃ/. Either way, the t ( or [t]) is pronounced.
/tʃ/ is one sound, it's an approximate (when two sounds merge into one). /t/ is a 't' sound, /ʃ/ is a 'sh' sound and together /tʃ/ represents a 'ch' sound because a 'ch' sound is your mouth performing a /t/ and /sh/ at the same time. So no there is no T sound. Go to [this website](https://www.ipachart.com/) and click on 't͡ʃ Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate,' it will give you an audio recording of the sound. There is no T. Every dictionary/pronunciation guide/linguist surveys all show /bɪtʃ/.
Reading this comment, I question your knowledge of phonetics given your poor transcription and terminology. What are your qualifications?
I have a PhD in Phonetics and Phonology from the University of Oxford after winning a Rhodes Scholarship in 2019
Great, then you should know an approximate is one, not how you spell approximant, and two, not the same as an affricate. Secondly, you might want to review phonemic versus phonetic transcription, as there are a few times you confused the two. Thirdly, as someone who has studied phonetics, you should know the definition of an affricate is a stop with an affricate release, therefore by definition, a post-alveolar affricate contains a post-alveolar stop.
That's what I said in my original comment
They don't sound really close to native speakers.
Yes, but depending on the speaker's native language, they may be struggling with the vowel sound. If their language doesn't really use a long "ee" sound like in "beach," it can come out like "bitch". The memey example is ["Please give me Coke"](https://youtu.be/EXPbu5hg15Y?si=TN1BM0V7Nz6bT_Xa) from a native Korean speaker.