a friend of ours was married to an Italian ( worse actually - Sicilian ) for years and she said she specially named her kids Julia and James so that her inlaws would have trouble

gulia?
Joooooolia?

Giulia, Gieems

Easy to pronounce (just need to change the spelling)

Tom

Can Canadians say 'about' ?

Or have i been watching too much South Park?


cheers
SC

This is a silly thread. It's obvious that non-native speakers of any language are likely to have problems with some or many words. Just to mention an example, many of us ausländer make poor usage of German umlauts.

My tandem partner probably wants to scratch her ears out every time I fail to make the correct pronunciation of "ö", "u", and "ü". I usually produce the same awful hybrid noise for all three of them.

Very true.

Our cat's name is Örl but we haven't found any native English speaker that could pronounce its name.

You try saying "écureuil"!

I haven't found many Swiss who can say "Mixture". It is pronounced "Mick-ture". Not sure I want them to change - it is pretty cute.

I think some of them chicken out and opt for the more pronounceable "constellation" instead.

Growing up I actually never really heard a Canadian say Aboot unless it was on TV. I totally didn't get the joke---until I ventured out of the Southern-Ontario Golden Horse-shoe.
Small town Canadian english does have that sound, but almost more in northern American towns

V and W ?

Look at
- wind
- vineyard
- wine
- walk

and in German look at names (personal ones and company ones) like
DIWISA
Divino

But Mixer and Mixtur are German words. So that they only have to combine
MIXT-SHER

Mixer makes more sense to me than blender. But that's maybe because we grew up a few kms near Ost Deutchland.

Why can English speakers never pronounce Flanellläppchen correctly?

Quite correct.
And my Swiss German husband had a penchant for "Wodka" and "Vimmen".......