If you have difficulty pronouncing some words or phrases, this does not necessarily mean that there are problems with diction. Difficulties in pronunciation are typical due to the huge number of compound words, most of which are frequently used specific terms (hydrometeorology, geomorphology, agricultural products, and others). Such hard-to-pronounce words in Russian as the names of chemical elements and drugs, for example, deoxyribonucleic acid, stand out in particular. The article will discuss hard-to-pronounce words in Russian, how they are formed and types, as well as how to work on their pronunciation.
Origin of compound words
Most of the hard-to-pronounce words came to Russian from foreign languages. Basically, they denote the names of professions, positions,technology, sports. For example, merchandiser (job title), refrigerator (equipment).
At the everyday level, hard-to-pronounce words do not pose any problems, since they can be replaced by a simpler synonym, for example, the word "diversification" can be replaced by the word "expansion", the word "prolonged" - "long-playing". But when delivering an official speech, report, in announcer's work on television or radio, it is necessary to adhere to strictly defined and prescribed terminology and operate with exact concepts.
For a speaker or announcer, phrases and words that are impossible to pronounce are a cause for tension and excitement. Difficult words lead to "stumbling" during speech. But you can’t do without them either, so it’s important to know how to write and pronounce such expressions correctly.
What are difficult words
As a rule, such words consist of several roots, and sometimes more, for example, “agricultural”, “hard-to-reach”.
But expressions that cause difficulties in pronunciation for announcers and speakers:
- to the user;
- beneficial;
- participating;
- recording;
- patronized;
- improvements;
- satellite;
- state.
The hardest words to pronounce
Difficulty in pronunciation of words is affected not only by the numberroots in its composition, but also the number of letters of which it consists, that is, the longest words are compound and the most difficult to pronounce. Consider the words-record holders for difficulty in pronunciation.
In the Guinness Book of Records, the longest Russian word is “very highly contemplating”, before this word the record holder was “roentgenoelectrocardiographic”.
The longest word, according to A. A. Zaliznyak’s Grammar Dictionary, is “private entrepreneurial”; verbs-record holders - "internationalize", "substantialize", "re-examine"; nouns-record holders - "High Excellency", "misanthropy"; animate nouns - "clerk", "eleventh grader"; the adverb is “unsatisfactory.”
In the spelling dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the most difficult word to pronounce is an adjective with a hyphen - "agricultural engineering" and an adjective without a hyphen - "electrophotosemiconductor", no less difficult to pronounce and a noun - "water-mud-peat-paraffin treatment".
What hard-to-pronounce words are for
In the Russian language there are indeed a lot of hard-to-pronounce words, but they very concisely and accurately convey the essence of phenomena or objects in the title. For example, aeronaut, armored personnel carrier, agricultural, natural science, literary criticism and many others.
Compound words are terms, definitions or concepts. For example, a huge numberhard-to-pronounce words in the names of chemical preparations: methylpropenylenedihydroxycinnamenacrylic acid; trinitrotoluene (explosive), deoxyribonucleic acid, dimethylalkylbenzylammonium chloride.
Difficult to pronounce words are also found in colloquial speech: superman, dance floor and so on.
The Internet is replete with lists of phrases that are difficult to pronounce while drunk (of course, these are not scientific studies, but observations from everyday life, but an interesting enough observation), the most common words in these lists are: calculative, difficult to pronounce, poorly coordinated, satisfactory.
In addition to words that cause difficulties in their pronunciation, there are also difficult-to-pronounce phrases, the purpose of which is to improve pronunciation, that is, they are used to develop the speech apparatus, help to learn to speak clearly and distinctly. Such phrases are called - tongue twisters.
Can I learn to pronounce difficult words and how?
For clear speech, tongue twisters are needed, they are designed for this purpose. They are poetic and very easy to remember. They do not have to be pronounced quickly, it is enough to pronounce them correctly, clearly, observing the rhythm.
You need to constantly train in the pronunciation of tongue twisters, you should practice daily, for about 15 minutes.
As a result of hard work, difficult-to-pronounce phrases and wordswill turn into regular ones, will be easy to pronounce and will not cause inconvenience or problems.
