English is downright confusing

Learning to make English words can be so difficult. As someone who grew up speaking English, I just took everything in my stride. After learning a few Asian languages, I can honestly say that English words can be downright confusing. Explaining the words to a learner of English is even worse.

"It's an exception."

I suppose we can use that as a convenient excuse for any English words or rules that cannot be explained.

Have fun with English!

The rule doesn't work!

My post entitled Jiggle or Giggle drew quite a few giggles, I must say. My classmates who were present during the conversation are probably still "ghiggling" over the mispronunciation. My Filipino friend who speaks perfect English and is now learning Spanish stumped me.

He left this comment on my post:
There are many examples of that for English. For example, some people pronounce "hamburger" with the hard "guh" sound; others with the "juh" sound.

What's the rule in English in pronouncing words ending in -ger?
- anger vs. avenger
- meager vs. merger
- finger vs. charger
etc.

Tagalog and Spanish have more predictable pronunciation patterns.

So, I went on a hunt for English pronunciation rules. I found this:

3. Pronunciation of the “G”

- When an “E”, “I”, or “Y” follows the “G”, it is pronounced as ‘ʤ’. Examples are: gym, giant, gem, gorgeous, and George.

- When a “U” or “A” follows the “G”, it is pronounced as ‘’ or ‘æ’. For example: gun, gum, gas, garden, and gap.

While the rule stated above works for most words beginning with "G", the pronunciation for "giggle" does not follow that rule! Neither do the words that my friend listed above!

As I have said many a time, the English language is not easy to learn. Exceptions abound, making pronunciation completely baffling for the learner, whatever age you may be. My little piece of advice is to simply accept the way it is pronounced and not try to figure it out too much. No wonder Psy said translation gives him a headache.

Have fun learning a language!

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