With nine letter and four syllables, the tongue-twisting "phenomenon" has been named as the most mispronounced word in the English language.由九個字母和四個音節(jié)組成的，發(fā)音饒舌的“現(xiàn)象”一詞成為英語里面最難念的單詞。
The word came first in a study of terms that are tricky to get your tongue around, with most people mixing up the letters M and N on a regular basis.這個詞在調(diào)查中之所以名列榜首，是因為phenomenon中的"m"和"n"一個連一個，讓你的嘴皮子倒騰不過來。
"Anaesthetist" came second because of quickly moving between the TH to the letters T at the end.“麻醉師”一詞的發(fā)音排名第二，難就難在"th"和"t"的音連接得太緊。
In third place was "remuneration", which is often mispronounced as "renumeration".“報酬”位居第三。這個詞難在它經(jīng)常被誤讀為"renumeration"。
Almost half of the 3,000 people surveyed admitted they often correct someone if they say something in the wrong way and a quarter of people said they thought mispronunciation showed a lack of intelligence.參與調(diào)查的3000人中，幾乎一半的受訪者表示他們經(jīng)常會糾正別人錯誤的發(fā)音，四分之一的受訪者說，發(fā)音錯誤容易給人知識水平不高的印象。
But suprisingly in the list of admissions, Britons admitted that February was the 12th hardest word to spit out.令人驚奇的是，英國人把“二月”一詞推上榜單，位列最難發(fā)音的第十二位。
A spokesman for Spinvox, a voicemail to text message service, which carried out the research, said: "Phenomenon is very hard to say because of the structure of the word."語音通信公司Spinvox進行了這項調(diào)查。該公司的發(fā)言人說：“Phenomenon這個字很難念是因為這個詞本身的結(jié)構(gòu)。”
"There are some real tongue-twisters in the list and it's understandable how many people can get confused when pronouncing certain words. "“這次的列表中有一些單詞確實很饒舌，所以許多人在念這些單詞時感覺困難是可以理解的。”
"A word one person finds easy to say, maybe difficult for the next person. Although it's worrying that some people find basic words such as February difficult to say."“某些人覺得好念的單詞對其他人來說卻可能并不好念，就像一些人覺得“二月”之類的基本單詞很難念。”
The company found that other difficult words to feature in the poll include "regularly" at 11, "particularly" at 13 and "prejudice" at 17.該公司發(fā)現(xiàn)的其他一些引人注目的難讀的上榜單詞包括位列11的“有規(guī)律地”、位列13的“尤其”和位列17的“偏見”。
More than a third of people even say they avoid using words they know they struggle with altogether so they do not end up looking stupid.超過三分之一的受訪者表示，為了不犯傻，他們會避免使用自己念不清楚的單詞。
（英語點津Jennifer編輯）
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