Jiggle or giggle?

We had a classmates gathering two days ago. As with all our gatherings, we sat round the table filled with food and talked endlessly about anything under the sun. One of us told this story:

"I was talking to my neighbour the other day. I was trying my best not to laugh out loud. He said, 'I couldn't stop jiggling ...' I was trying to imagine how he was jiggling around ..."



We were in peals of laughter! What the neighbour meant to say was "I couldn't stop giggling" not "jiggling". I suppose he didn't realise that "g" followed by "i" gives a hard "guh" sound, rather than a "juh" sound. One kind soul tried to defend his mispronunciation by saying, "Well, technically he's not wrong. "Gi" can be pronounced as "Ji"." More peals of laughter.



Inspired by all the giggling and jiggling, another poetic classmate wrote a poem about our get-together over food, plus "ghiggling" as she spelled it. Most everyone who was there had something to say about "ghiggling" on Facebook. What an impact one funny pronunciation can make.

If you're learning English, the neighbour in my story could well be you. The English language is not easy to learn. Pronunciation can be a mystery even to a native speaker. Being embarrassed in front of others because of poor pronunciation is so "uncool", for lack of a better word. But it takes very thick skin and determination to learn a language well. Just keep at it. You will get it someday soon, as long as you don't give up.

We're in the Lunar New Year already. Let's keep up our resolution to learn a new language this year!

Happy learning!

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