If you’ve ever heard a Spanish speaker saying words like guitarra or ferrocarril, you know exactly how hard their “hard Rs” can get. Indeed, Spanish R is one of the most dreaded letters in the Spanish alphabet, next with J and the elusive (that is… perpetually silent) H. The fact that Spanish R is especially difficult(…)

We recently took a look at some of the weird and wonderful ways the English language is, um, butchered, up and down the length and breadth of the British Isles. And when we’d finished chuckling at that, we realised; it’s not just what we say that’s funny, but how we say it, that is, on(…)

  English pronunciation is the language world’s Cirque du Soleil with the way it often twists and turns and ties your tongue in a knot. As native speakers of the glorious land mine that is the English language, please let us assure you: the pronunciation confuses us too. Dating profile of the letter c Imagine,(…)

If you have ever taught English or just helped out a foreign friend learning the language then you probably got asked about spelling at some point. More specifically, the student will have asked why on Earth some words are pronounced completely differently from the way they are spelled. Anyone who has grown up with a(…)