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Hi there, and welcome to Wall Street’s ”Two-Minute English”.
How is everyone doing? Today, we’re going to go over some common pronunciation errors that many people make here in Hong Kong. You may have heard some of these before, but it never hurts to review and go over something again because it was very easy for us to forget things.
(1) Soup – the word “soup” is made up of three sounds “s”, “ou” and “p”. Many people pronounce it as “shoup” with a “sh” sound instead of a “s” sound. Try not to say it with a “sh” but use a “s”, so the word should be “soup”.
(2) 15 / 50 – “one five” is pronounced as “fif-TEEN” with the emphasis on the second syllable, whereas “five zero” is pronounced as “FIF-ty” the emphasis on the first syllable. Many students confuse the pronunciation of these two numbers. 15 / 50.
(3) Housing estate – many people say “ES-tate” but the correct pronunciation is “es-TATE”, with the emphasis on the second syllable. For example: “I live in a housing estate.”
(4) Cucumber / hamburger – because of Cantonese, many people in Hong Kong tend to place the emphasis on the second syllable for words that have three syllables. For example, they would say “cu-CUM-ber” and “ham-BUR-ger” etc. The emphasis should be on the first syllable, for example, “CU-cum-ber” and “HAM-bur-ger”.
Well, that’s all for this week’s “Two-Minute English”. Bye-bye.
