Can You Pronounce All These Words Correctly? If you can, you speak English better than 90 percent of the world's English speakers.

如果你能念出这首诗！那你可以自豪地说，我的英语比世界上90%的人说得好！

After trying these verses a Frenchman said that he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

听说，有一位尝试过的法国人表示：我宁愿做六个月的苦力也不要大声念出六行诗……

真的有这么难么？大家快来试试看！

The Chaos¹

By G. Nolst Trenite, aka Charivarius (1870-1946)

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse³, corps², horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque⁴ and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak⁵ and streak⁶;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid⁷ of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles,topsails, aisles⁸,

Exiles, similes¹⁰, and reviles¹¹;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica¹², war and far;

One, anemone¹³, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen¹⁴, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet¹⁵, wallet, mallet¹⁶, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous¹⁷, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve¹⁸,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy¹⁹, privy²⁰, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour²¹ with clangour.

Souls but foul²², haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont²³, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger²⁴, linger,

Real, zeal²⁵, mauve, gauze, gouge²⁶ and gauge²⁷,

Marriage, foliage²⁸, mirage²⁹, and age.

Query³⁰ does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom³¹, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Feoffer does, and zephyr³², heifer.

Mint, pint³³, senate and sedate³⁴;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic³⁵, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard³⁶, towed, but vowed³⁷.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches³⁸, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice³⁹, but police and lice;

Camel, constable⁴⁰, unstable⁴¹,

Principle, disciple⁴², label.

Petal⁴³, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal⁴⁴.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm⁴⁵, Maria, but malaria⁴⁶.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse⁴⁷ and clean.

Doctrine⁴⁸, turpentine, marine⁴⁹.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion⁵⁰.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver⁵¹, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice⁵² and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface⁵³.

Phlegm, phlegmatic⁵⁴, ass⁵⁵, glass, bass⁵⁶.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging⁵⁷,

Ought, out, joust⁵⁸ and scour⁵⁹, scourging⁶⁰.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp⁶¹, and cork⁶² and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche⁶³!)

Is a paling stout⁶⁴ and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits⁶⁵?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace⁶⁶, gunwale,

Islington and Isle⁹ of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict⁶⁷.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough⁶⁸, or cough?

Hiccoughhas the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!