12 ANNOYING mistakes NATIVE SPEAKERS make in spoken English
…As reported by other irritated native English speakers. 😒
As somebody learning English, of course, you want to pronounce things the right way; you want people — and of course, native speakers — to understand what you’re saying!
So many of us worry about if we’re pronouncing things the right way or if we’re saying things the right way in our target language and for English learners, this is even tougher because we have so many words where they look like they should be pronounced the same way, but… they’re not.
Take, for instance:
- reading (as in, a book) — /ˈriː.dɪŋ/
e.g. I love reading books.
And:
- Reading (the UK city)- /ˈrɛdɪŋ/
e.g. Reading is an interesting city.
But today we’re going to take a look at some mistakes that UK native speakers make… and how that annoys OTHER native speakers (yes, really!).
In my experience (as a British person myself), I know that the majority of people won’t care about your bad pronunciation as much as they will HATE to hear a native speaker make obvious mistakes. In fact, if you pronounce things wrong and they know English is your second language… they’re more likely to just find it cute (or funny).
But when native speakers make mistakes that otherwise make no sense—oh boy, they HATE it!….as evidenced by this Reddit thread I found.
In this thread native speakers get real honest about the pronunciation mistakes their countrymen make, and how these mistakes really IRRITATE them. 😤
So let’s take a look at their complaints so you can know what to avoid when you’re speaking English 😀
1. It’s specifically… not pacifically.
It’s actually quite a common mistake that I hear a lot from native speakers and there’s no real reason for this — it’s just a mistake.
If we’re really going to be honest here, it’s very rare that we would use the word, “pacifically”… some may never ever use this word in their lifetime. So, if you’re ever in doubt, chances are that you’ll need specifically not pacifically.
- Specifically: in a specific manner / in a definite and exact way / with precision
e.g: It’s the blue car that I want specifically.
- Pacifically: in a peaceful way or a way that helps to cause peace
e.g. “I don’t want to fight anymore,” he explained pacifically.
On another note, the phrase, “grinds my gears” is a very informal phrase to say, “it really annoys me!”, made famous by Peter Griffin of Family Guy:
2. EXpresso?…it’s eSpresso!
It seems that more and more people are regularly mispronouncing this word and it’s most likely because, in English, the word “express” usually means fast, or rapid… so it makes sense that such a small amount of coffee might be called an eXpresso — because you can drink it pretty quickly!
But the true way to say it — the Italian way, which is the way we say it in English — is eSpresso. And saying it with the that X instead might just make people feel a little irritated.
3. It’s pronounced skeleton… not skellington
It’s very strange when you hear a grown adult use “skellington” instead of skeleton, because “skellington” sounds very… child-like.
By mispronouncing this word, people will also assume that you don’t know how to spell it (after all, why would you pronounce a word with different letters if you didn’t think the letters were in the word??).
I think some people do mistake this word too because of the character, Jack Skellington, from A Nightmare Before Christmas.
4. The letter “H”
I don’t care what anyone thinks or says — I pronounce this “haitch”! I come from the West Midlands in England and I guess you could say this is a majority working-class area. So some may attribute this “haitch” sound to that, or even to social class.
However, it does seem that “aitch” is becoming more and more common. Either way, it doesn’t matter… neither is wrong. It’s just a matter of dialects and backgrounds.
So if you’re confused about which one to use… use whichever you feel more comfortable with! They are both perfectly fine pronunciations of this letter.
Read more about the change of pronunciation in the UK over time:
5. Supposebly…. ? No… Supposedly.
People say this word wrong a lot. I think it’s because they’re speaking fast and just mispronounce the letters.
Or… they don’t know how it’s spelt and only ever heard it in spoken English, which is super fast… and as we all know, words can sound very different from their standard pronunciation when they’re spoken fast and in an informal manner. Some may think they heard it pronounced “supposebly” and so copy that.
6. Free instead of three
This one mostly changes depending on dialect/accent.
- Three /θri/
- Free /fri/
You might hear someone say “free” due to their Cockney (East London) accent.
You might hear someone say “free” because they’re speaking informally and very fast.
You might hear someone say “free” because they have issues pronouncing it (ie. speech impediment!).
But yes, “three” (/θri/) is the standard pronunciaton, and how you should try to pronounce it. However, if you can’t, or if you just mess it up, don’t worry — we’ll know what you mean from the context of the sentence. 😁
⚠️Remember — even native speakers don’t speak perfectly, so you don’t need to either! Oh and by the way… I regularly say “free” instead of “three”… 😉
7. Somethink instead of something
This one again is an accent thing. The standard pronunciation is of course “something” with the “g” on the end… but yes, some people will pronounce it with a “k”. And that’s ok, because there are different dialects and variations on words used across the UK.
When someone’s accent however doesn’t generally use this pronunciation of “something” though, you know they’re saying it “wrong” — ie. differently to how they were taught how to say it. I think that’s where it might become irritating.
Again, a London Cockney accent might pronounce it “somethink” but this would sound really weird coming from someone with a Birmingham accent, where this pronunciation is not natural.
8. Generally instead of genuinely
Well… this one is just simply mixing up two different words.
- Generally: in a general manner
- Genuinely: truthfully/truly
They mean totally different things though, so it does sound weird to mix them up. However, it’s always useful to remember that some people have dyslexia, and mixing up words in this way can be due to this (I’m surrounded by dyslexic people, so I am used to hearing words mixed up quite a lot!)
9. Brought / bought
Natives mix these up allllll the time — I’m not exaggerating here. You’ll hear it all the time.
The key to remember is that:
- Bring= brought
- Buy = bought
To bring has a BR and so will its conjugation.
10. Etc does not have an X!
We use “etc.” to show that a list is not final, for example:
- You’ll need as many vegetables as possible; tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, onions etc.
Over time people have misheard this and then mispronounced it, and it has spread…
And then… the mispronunciation has been used as the acronoym instead…
Let’s clear it up for good:
- Write it like this: etc.
- That’s short for: et cetera
- Pronounce it like: et- set-uh-rah /ɛtˈsɛtərə/
- Informally and very commonly it can be also pronounced like et-set-rah (missing the middle ‘uh’ part)
Got it? 😁
11. Would of… instead of would have
It’s normal and common in daily spoken English to use contractions, and so we have “would have” contracted to “would’ve”.
So far, so good, and totally correct.
However, some people say this more than they write it, and eventually they start to think that it’s written exactly how it’s pronounced… like, “would of”.
This is a mistake and it’s not a mistake that will be accepted — its wrong in all situations and types of English. So never write “would of”!! ❌
12. I could care less… for I couldn’t care less
The actual phrase is, “I could not care less”, shortened a little with the contraction, “couldn’t”. So:
I couldn’t care less!
However, something quite common is saying, “I could care less” which is actually the complete opposite of what this is supposed to mean.
This phrase reflects the fact that you care so LITTLE that it is impossible for you to care less than you do right now — ie. you’re already depleted of “caring” about this topic and you can’t lose any more interest when you are at 0% interest.
So saying, “I could care less” is just… well, wrong.
The problem is that this is something we UK natives are exposed to more when listening to US speakers, who do tend to make this error more than a UK native would.
Hence, the comment:
