stew/シチュー (pronunciation)


Preview(腕試し)

This is pronounced "she-chew" in Japanese. What is the natural English pronunciation?

A. stu (rhymes with "blue")

B. su-too (rhymes with "you, too")

C. shi-chew (rhymes with "he, too")

 


Explanation(説明)

The pronunciation of many loan-words (gairaigo) is close enough to the English pronunciation to be understood by native speakers of English. Some katakana loanwords, however, have quite different pronunciations from the original English words.

The pronunciation for stew is exactly the same as the stu in student. When someone first asked me if I liked shichuu, I thought it was a Chinese dish!


Exercises (練習)

Other pronunciation problems. Please choose the best answer.

1. U.F.O. rhymes with:

A. you-f-oh

B. you-fo

C. ooh-foo

 

2. Vinyl (ビニール)sounds like what in English?

A. VIE-nuhl

B. bi-NII-ru

C. BI-nuhl


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