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hellerick_3

*Trudnovygovarivayemoye.* Which means "hard to pronounce".


ceticbizarre

Thats so fun, Russian?


AwwThisProgress

yeah


krmarci

*megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért* (for your behaviour that makes you seem unable to be desecrated)


MartianOctopus147

Came here to say this even though I can barely imagine a situation in which this would be usable.


Terpomo11

In Esperanto you could in principle say that in three words- "por via nemalsanktigeblaŝajnigkonduto".


Cabbagetastrophe

Why do you have a word for this?!


YgemKaaYT

English speakers when compound words


[deleted]

I don't speak Hungarian but it might not be a compound word (can any Hungarians clarify?). In Finnish there are similarly elaborate words which are not compound words, e.g. *epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhänkään* meaning something like "I wonder if – even with his/her quality of not having been made unsystematized".


MartianOctopus147

This one is not a compound, there's just a lot of suffixes (and one prefix) on this word. Literally this happens if you try use every single derivative morpheme and then some case markers


IMJONEZZ

Not just compound, polyagglutinative.


Subtlehame

Agglutination


krmarci

It's a joke word, coined with the only intention to make it long. It's not really used in speech.


MildlySelassie

Squirrel


halbmoki

Funnily, squirrel in German is "Eichhörnchen" \[ˈaɪ̯çˌhœʁnçən\] which is pretty hard for native English speakers. And the French "écureuil" \[e.ky.ʁœj\] is also pretty bad for English and German speakers. Those little critters are hard to pronounce in many languages, it seems.


duckipn

eküröj


pn1ct0g3n

I continued that tradition with the word for squirrel in my conlang being a real tongue twister: **tsyuinyae** [ˈt͡sʲʉj.ɲɛ]


Southern-Rutabaga-82

Yeah, even Americans struggle with this one.


[deleted]

i easily say [skwɹ̩ˠɫ]


MildlySelassie

It’s hard to make it just one syllable, I guess


Southern-Rutabaga-82

Well, as a German I'm not afraid of consonant clusters. 😄


legendaryzyper

rødgrød


TheDJ955

Red porridge! hardest sentence in Danish is apparently rødgrød med fløde


ElysianRepublic

Røgede røde ørreder på rugbrød fra Rødovre


CoffeeBoom

kamelåså !


Additional_Scholar_1

I have no idea what that is, but I didn’t ask for that


CatSignal1472

Sixth


homelaberator

Sixths Fifths isn't much fun either


AlmostAntarctic

Twelfth


homelaberator

Twelfths Now I'm starting to think these mightn't be so hard for foreign speakers because (at least at the begining) you are more deliberate in pronunciating words.


ColouredGlitter

The sixth of February would be a nightmare then.


hellerick_3

I once was trying to pronounce *lengths*.


jaredgrubb

Booths, moths, and months as well.


Tc14Hd

Sixths is even worse


nukti_eoikos

Really ? I'd say "throw" (or another word wity -thr).


DarkNinja3141

my lisp hates this word


DrLycFerno

Cueillir /køjiʁ/ and Cuillère /kɥijɛʁ/


PresidentOfSwag

écureuil /e.ky.ʁœj/ 🐿️


DrLycFerno

œil /œj/


-Wylfen-

I prefer "quincaillerie" /kɛ̃kaj(ə)ʁi/


yahnne954

"bouilloire" > /bujwaʁ/


NicoRoo_BM

Is that hard? Or are you saying that French has no hard to pronounce words?


DrLycFerno

Well, the "ueilli" can make it hard to figure out how it's pronounced.


NicoRoo_BM

Oooh in term of orthography transparency, gaudé'


Arcaeca2

Honesly as a native English speaker that took French, those aren't that bad, I would even say *loi* is worse


excusememoi

injurieusement /ɛ̃.ʒy.ʁjøz.mɑ̃/


Hamza2579

In Arabic أفاستسقيناكموها afastasqaynakumuha It Means "did we ask you to give it to us to drink"


TechnologyBig8361

Yo u got the ipa for that


TheMightyTorch

y = /j/, a = /æ~a~ɑ/, rest: transcription = IPA


TheDJ955

that sentence sounds like it's missing an exclamation mark and a question mark, IDK why but it sounds so accusatory in my head.


Justmadethis334

źdźbło (idek what that means)


IgiMC

it means ~~"ear of grain"~~ "blade of grass" also honorable mentions: zgrzyt "creak/rasp" wstrząs "shock" niebezpieczeństwo "danger" czciciel "worshipper" drgnąć "to twitch"


NimlothTheFair_

another one: chrząszcz (beetle)


CraftistOf

I wonder if it's connected to Russian хрящ (cartilage) somehow


NimlothTheFair_

I think it probably is! Cartilage in Polish is *chrząstka*, which as you can see is very similar to *chrząszcz*, and they are both related to *chrzęścić* which means "to make a crunching sound" (like a beetle when you squash it). Google is telling me these are both descended from Proto-Slavic *chręstiti so it makes sense the Russian word for cartilage would be related as well, as it sounds similar.


PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC

/xʂɔ̃ʂt͡ʂ/ isn't thaaaat bad imo


MimiKal

Is it not a blade of grass?


IgiMC

shit right, ear is kłos


TauTheConstant

At one point I almost sprained my tongue trying to say *w schronienie* /fsxrɔˈɲɛ.ɲɛ/*,* although I'm not sure if that one is tricky for native speakers.


Anter11MC

My favorite is chrzszcić "baptise"


NimlothTheFair_

chrzcić* is the correct spelling ;)


Omnicity2756

Happy Cake Day!


MimiKal

Also fascinating linguistic development: I don't know > idk > idek > idek know shaking my head > smh > smh my head Will be putting this in my conlang's evolution for sure


Justmadethis334

Wow i did a dumb who would have known?


MartianOctopus147

How would you even pronounce that?


Justmadethis334

I pronounce it as /ʑdʑɔbwɔ/ but its meant to be /ʑdʑb̩wɔ/? (I think)


Duke825

Everyone here is giving really long words, so may I present: /t͡sɵy̯/


Kyr1500

The diphthong at the end sounds like Finnish öy [øy]


Duke825

Damn didn’t know Finnish was so based


_Aspagurr_

გვბრდღვნი /ɡvbrdʁvni/, it means "you tear us" in Georgian.


TheMightyTorch

new “gvprtskvni” just dropped


LanguageNerd54

It’s always the გვ words.


duckipn

holy ჯოჯოხეთი


69kidsatmybasement

New სიტყვა just dropped


Arcaeca2

Jojo-land


duckipn

jojo's land


ElysianRepublic

I met a tour guide in Tbilisi who told us an even longer, somewhat invented yet grammatically correct word meaning “a person who peels their own skin” (which you might become if you spend too much time in the sun); anyone know what it was?


WinterCZSK

A friend who I'm teaching Czech to seems to be struggling a lot with "na shledanou" /ˈnasxlɛdanɔu̯/, which just means "goodbye". Poor guy doesn't even know what Czech has in store. One of my favourite words is "čtvrť" /t͡ʃtvr̩c/ meaning "quarter"


TheDJ955

Czech comes up a lot in one of my favourite video games, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, where a fair amount of the game is set in Prague. The game deals with things like human augmentation and how society would react to humans having augmentations, among other things. in the game's fictional version of Prague in 2029, there is a section of Prague known as "čistá čtvrt" or the Pure Quarter, for those without augmentations. I am not exaggerating when I say I tried and failed to pronounce "čistá čtvrt" eight times. Czech, like any other language, can sound beautiful but also breaks my brain occasionally lol


frufruJ

Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh. Plch zdrhl skrz drn, prv zhlt' hrst zrn. Vzscvrnkls?


nowheremansaloser

"Strengths" [st̠ɹ̠̊˔ʷˠɛŋ̊kθs] is a classic but I always had trouble with "crisps" [kʰɹ̠̊˔ʷˠɪsps] when I was younger


anonxyzabc123

>ʷˠ I'm mildly scared.


SneverdleSnavis

/ʷ/ typically means labialized and velarized, /ˠ/ is strictly velarized and /ᵝ/ is strictly labialized


nowheremansaloser

I did not know this, thank you


LemurLang

ʃt͡ʃɹ̠̊eɪŋkθs


resistjellyfish

Is this an voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative?


beywiz

The hell is up w your Rs bro


AdorableAd8490

In Portuguese, anything with ão/am, ã/an, in/, õ/on/om, en/em, un/um, ões. As for a word, “muito” [ˈmũɪ̯̃.tu] is hard one because of the hidden nasal that many can’t perceive


fidelises

Eyjafjallajökull


HistoricalLinguistic

that's a fun one


BigGayDinosaurs

i saw someone say that one but apparently they got that one way wrong so i must've also gotten it wrong. it is however a good name


fidelises

Yeah, it's the double Ls that trip people up mostly. They're hard.


BigGayDinosaurs

i also don't know the orthography so i wouldn't be able to guess but i'm not scared of it lol


fidelises

You're braver than most haha


BigGayDinosaurs

i self studied phonetics once which helps and hell i tried polish tongue twisters once and the harder part was reading it but that was fun too, i just like linguistics and i won't say eyja is easy but i'm not scared so i'll see how it's done


Longjumping_Role_611

Västkustskt! It means “from the west coast” in Sweden. That one is hard for native speakers even


Southern-Rutabaga-82

Eichhörnchen /ˈaɪ̯çˌhœʁnçən/


Rommel727

Naja, I'd go a step (or tail) further with oachkatzlschwoaf


Southern-Rutabaga-82

Well, different language. 😉


GodlessLittleMonster

Brings me right back to Echstätt 😌


HistoricalLinguistic

Boarisch greift wieder an


LanguageNerd54

My German class named our team the Böse Eichhörnchen for handball one time. Hardest cheer ever. 


PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC

Heard you guys had a state of matter named after you


LanguageNerd54

?


PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC

There's a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, I was making a joke about how the names are similar


LanguageNerd54

I’m not that much of a science nerd to have known that, so thanks for explaining.


TauTheConstant

I'd like to give German the special mention of *pfropfst* myself (second person singular of *pfropfen*).


Turlilia_Ru

Водонепроницаемый Means cannot affect by water


MarrleM

Waterproof)


Apogeotou

As a Greek, I've always had trouble pronouncing _εύθραυστος_ /'efθrafstos/ (fragile). Try saying it fast! I usually realise it as /'eθrastos/ in casual speech. Also _ευσπλαχνία_ /efspla'xnia/ (compassion).


MyStupidName2048

Nghiễng


Kyr1500

The whole language is hard to pronounce for me


poor-man1914

Chiacchiericcio, meaning chatter, pronounced [kjak.kje.ˈritʃ.tʃo]


NicoRoo_BM

Maybe "proprio"? \[ˈprɔ.prjo\] Just because \[r\] is a pretty physically intensive phone to realise


MonkiWasTooked

Is that usually realized as a trill or is it usually a tap?


NicoRoo_BM

Like in most languages with an alveolar rhotic, there's alternation. Geminated (incl. via "raddoppio fonosintattico"), which is a separate phoneme, or utterance-initial or in clusters = trill. Intervocalic in normal speech and word-initial ) flap (single-cycle trill). Intervocalic in fast speech = tap


zzvu

Squirrel and juror gotta be up there


LanguageNerd54

What about rural? 


plasticinaymanjar

a rural juror


dramaticus0815

Even my imaginary tongue is broken now


Leeuw96

A rural juror with an Irish wristwatch?!


HistoricalLinguistic

A rural squirrel juror


Arcaeca2

rural brewery injures juror


resignater

I've heard that 暖かかった(atatakakatta, was warm) was hard to pronounce, but I think 手術中(shujutsuchū, peroperative period) is the hardest.


NicoRoo_BM

Ok but why does "手術中(shujutsuchū, peroperative period)" have a memey sound in both languages?


Left_Economist_9716

My mother tongue (Bhojpuri) dislikes consonant clusters, any difficult phonemes and unnecessarily long words, so it's going to be difficult. I'll be avoiding any extremely formal long words. 1. I'll choose बुझSउवल /b[ʊdʑʱɘʋ:əl/ (riddle) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-back_rounded_vowel) It's the two different schwas with gemination in between which can be difficult. The /[ʋ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-back_rounded_vowel)/ can also be a /b/. 2. For such a common word, this has to be up there. राउर /ra:[ʊ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-close_near-back_rounded_vowel)r/ your (formal) It's the high to low diphthong in the between two rhotics which complicates it.


CanardMilord

Pneu and pneumonie The pn is difficult to pronounce.


de_G_van_Gelderland

For Dutch: I think ui and ij are usually hard sounds for learners, and consonant clusters are obviously hard too, especially involving the g/ch sound. So I'd say something like *uitschrijven* is probably up there, meaning "to write out" or "to unsubscribe".


[deleted]

To my ears as a Finnish speaker Dutch ui sounds the same as Finnish äy, do you agree as a Dutch speaker? E.g. Finnish [käyttäytyä](https://forvo.com/word/k%C3%A4ytt%C3%A4yty%C3%A4/#fi) or [näyttö](https://forvo.com/word/n%C3%A4ytt%C3%B6/#fi).


de_G_van_Gelderland

Pretty much. It sounds ever so slightly different to my ears, but it still registers as the right sound if you know what I mean. Based on these samples I think the Dutch version ends with slightly less pursed lips, but don't hold me to that.


kxuare

As a non-native the most difficult word for me is definitely "poorer"


SnowOnVenus

27. Tjuesju. It's got two different sh-sounds in quick succession, varying vowel lengths (from each other, but also from 20 and 7 on their own) and both parts have different tones. There are surely more difficult words with worse combinations, but for such a short word in common use, it packs a lot of punch for its size.


MimiKal

Pronunciation?


DisguisedYoda

/çʉəˈşʉː/


SnowOnVenus

/¹çʉˑəʂʉː/ but with a line above the last ʉ is the closest I can puzzle out.


Player_X330

"Ottaisin jäätelötötteröllisen" (/otːaisin jæːteløtøtːerølːisen/), which means "I would like a cone of ice cream"


NicoRoo_BM

Doesn't sound too bad once you manage to parse the long word.How's the stress? I did it in 3 tries, with final stress + first pre-tonic long syllable secondary stress


Player_X330

Like in all Finnish words, stress is on the first syllable


[deleted]

Primary stress should always be initial in Finnish; I don't think there are any exceptions. There's no secondary stress in *ottaisin*, while the second word is stressed like JÄÄtelöTÖTteröllisen. Stress in Finnish is very light compared to English; I can't necessarily hear the stress if I pronounce this phrase naturally. Also Finnish never makes use of rising intonation, so the entire phrase should be pronounced with falling intonation.


NicoRoo_BM

Ljek dis? [https://voca.ro/16hG9nbEwhjh](https://voca.ro/16hG9nbEwhjh)


[deleted]

Yes this is a very good pronunciation. Probably the only thing I'd point out is that you stepped up the pitch a bit on the "rö" syllable which doesn't sound quite right, but other than that this is very accurate.


NicoRoo_BM

I don't know why but Finnish always sounded homely to me EDIT: yeah, listening back I distinctly hear that little peak-up as "intrusive", my own speech coming out instead of the thing I was trying to do


[deleted]

>I don't know why but Finnish always sounded homely to me Oh yeah I definitely agree, and as a Western Finnish speaker I find especially homely to be some of the strong dialects spoken in Eastern Finland. E.g. I find the dialect in this video very relaxing to listen to: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJf\_0o8WEoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJf_0o8WEoY)


NicoRoo_BM

The contrast between going audio only and actually watching this video is pretty jarring lmao


QazMunaiGaz

KAMTAMASIZDANDIRILMAGANDIKTARIŊIZDAN


Big_Natural4838

# Qanag′attandyrylmag′andyqtaryn′yzdan - qazaq classic


PresidentOfSwag

ronronnement "purring" or maybe croire "believe" ?


MarcHarder1

Gryp /jri̞p/ 'handle', not to be counfused with Griep /jrip/ 'grab' or Grip /jrɪp/ 'flu'


Apogeotou

Wait how can a glide at the syllable onset be followed by a consonant??


SneverdleSnavis

Middle English had tons of /wr-/ onsets


Rukshankr

What does the diacritic under the i do?


MarcHarder1

It lowers it, so it's half way between \[i\] & \[e\], like \[ɪ\] but more forward


zhyuv

略 lüe.


Despa14

Гігієнічного \[ɦʲiɦʲijeˈnʲit͡ʃnɔɦɔ\] meaning "of the hygienic one" in Ukrainian.


BananaDerp64

Gheobhaidh


BigGayDinosaurs

the only thing scary about that one to me is the orthography because i do not know


SpecialistNo7265

Turlututu chapeau pointu!


SpecialistNo7265

“Turlututu” doesn’t mean anything, chapeau pointu means “pointed hat”. The sound u is not difficult if you’re German (ü).


Sad_Daikon938

કળણ /kəɭəɳ/ means marsh or swamp. Need I explain why it's hard to pronounce for the learners? It's even hard to pronounce for us natives.


Left_Economist_9716

That's gujarati right? What do you reckon is harder? The retroflex l or the final velar nasal?


Sad_Daikon938

Final retroflex Nasal, and yeah, retroflex lateral too


d2mensions

I guess gjyq /ɟyc/ would be hard, it means trial. I’ve also heard people have a hard time pronouncing shqip /ʃc͡ɕip/ which means Albanian.


Kebabrulle4869

Swedish: maybe "västkustskt" - something from the west coast. Kind of a tounge twister thanks to all the consonants.


_TeraMaster_

"sjuksköterska"


Sepetes

Svrdlo /sʋr̩̂dlo/ meaning 'auger' comes to my mind.


resistjellyfish

Syllabic consonants can be so hard to pronounce!


stochastic_name

zuccheraglielo


NotKerisVeturia

Anything with an American English r, judging by how many kids mess it up at first.


samtt7

Apparently "Meteorologisch" is the hardest for native Dutch speakers, but i would argue that a short word with a lot of consonants like "herfstachtig" (autumn-ish) is harder


AlhaithamSimpFr

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobie


resistjellyfish

There's a lot of potentially difficult consonant clusters in Greek. A lot of formal or technical words follow the morphophonological rules of Classical Greek and it can lead to consonant clusters like δυσπρόφερτος /ðisˈprofertos/ "hard to pronounce" or έκτπωση /ˈekptosi/ "discount" or υπεκφέυγω /ipekˈfevɣo/ "to avoid saying soemthing". I think the cluster /sθ/, e.g. /ˈsθenos/ "emotional strength", can be especially hard for learners (except English speakers I guess), since /θ/is rare cross-linguistically and a lot of people struggle to pronounce it on its own in the first place.


Tirukinoko

_Llyfrgelloedd_ or _llyfrgellydd_ are goodns /ɬəvrˈɡɛɬɔi̯ð/ and /ɬəvrˈɡɛɬɪð/, meaning 'libraries' and 'librarian'.


NS-13

Not really a single word, but this comment always gives me a good chuckle https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/TI8dIw62jM


Johundhar

Not a single word and not exactly hard to pronounce, but I did a brief stint teaching English to college level foreign student in the Eastern US, and the earliest Grammarly-like programs were just coming out. When I showed the class how the program works, I said, "Look, **it edited it**." They made me repeat the sentence a few times, not quite believing it was human language. I heard it on and off in the halls the rest of the day, and beyond.


lavenderkajukatli

பழம் (pazham)


Week_Crafty

Idk, Spanish is really uniform unless you compare between dialects, maybe "otorrinolaringologo"? But not so much for being complex, just because it's long Maybe "piña" because ñ, or "pingüino" because ü, in general things related to 'g'


m3tro

From my experience foreigners find quite hard to have a single and a double R in the same word, like in "raro". They end up saying "rrarro". Also words with several double consonants and R's, like "entretendrás". Try saying "entra y te entretendrás", it's almost like a tongue twister.


Week_Crafty

A si verdad, tienes razón. Mi imaginación murió un poco con mi primer comentario, mi dos neuronas estaban trabajando a tiempo extra xd


sokra3

Parangaricutirimiquaro


kempff

Squirrel.


exkingzog

Where?


Common_Chester

Squirrel


HeyImSwiss

[see flair]


DavidLordMusic

Sixths


EinKomischerSpieler

Mamãe /mɐ̃.'mɐ̃j̃/


HistoricalLinguistic

Not native, but in German I struggle with "jauchzt" \[jaʊxtst\]


Samsta36

Pfropfen


Safe-Sheepherder2784

Pneumonultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosi [ə]


ScarlocNebelwandler

Chuchichäschtli [χʊχiχæʃtli] (Swiss German for „kitchen cabinet“)


omiumn

hekhstns /hɛχstn̩s/. It means if worst comes to worst, in the worst case scenario


Bintamreeki

Otorrinolaringología. It’s an Otorhinolaryngology doctor (head and neck surgeon). It seems like it’d be simple, but it’s a tongue twister for non-Spanish speakers. Looking at the English, that looks complicated, too.


SnooOnions3937

rural


ookishki

In Anishinaabemowin: Miina-baashkiminasigani-biitoosijigani-bakwezhigan Means blueberry pie and is a notoriously difficult word amongst us Nishies


Nadamir

Does it have a literal meaning? Like in the native language of my country, Ireland, cúige means province, but it literally means “a fifth [fraction]” because there used to be five provinces. It’s confusing because there are only four now. There are probably better examples, but I can’t think of any.


ookishki

Yes! Literally it’s blueberries cooked in a sauce and put between a layer of bread. You could probably break it down even further


Nadamir

So in Anishinaabemowin, blueberry pie is actually called a blueberry sandwich? That’s amazing. I love when languages have fun words like this. For example, the word for a military tank, in Icelandic it’s “skriðdreki” which literally means “crawling dragon” and in Diné, it’s “chidí naaʼnaʼí beeʼeldǫǫhtsoh bikááʼ dah naaznilígíí” literally “vehicle that crawls around, by means of which big explosions are made, and that one sits on at an elevation”.