r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Upstairs_Cash8400 • 2d ago

English for Beginners

8.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

445 comments sorted by

View all comments

70

u/Nevermore_Novelist 1d ago

The way he says, "NOOOOHHHHHH" kills me!

Though
Through
Cough
Bough
Enough

None of these words sound the same, despite each of them ending in ough. This is one of many reasons I never get mad at someone who is clearly speaking English as a second language.

English doesn't fuck around. If it wasn't my first language, I would refuse to learn it.

10

u/Decent_Cow 1d ago

All of these words used to end with a velar fricative, but when we lost that sound it got replaced with several different things.

3

u/Bovoduch 1d ago

What did that sound like

5

u/Buckle_Sandwich 1d ago

"ɣ"

(I'm being a smartass. It's that back-of-the-throat sound I associate with German and Arabic)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative