Thorough, thought, cough, furlough... Why so many ways of pronouncing OUGH in English?

[@dario1837]

I am from Italy, a nation that uses the roman alphabet and roman spelling; this is a blessing: if a person says a word you have never heard you can write it down all the same without error or find it on the vocabulary. when I was trying to teach English to my little niece I told her firstly "see this words? they are like people faces: you just have to learn the name of each face".

[@janechayka7416]

I love this comparison! With your permission, I'll use it with my students, as well :)

[@DouglasGross6022]

Pronunciation in English is _simple_ - memorize each word. I didn't say it was _easy._

[@Carlowski]

Italian living in Scotland here, could not agree more! If one wants the acme of spelling absurdity, don't look past Scottish nameplaces... e.g. Kilconquhar is pronounced "kee-nyu-khar"

[@DouglasGross6022]

@@Carlowski Visit Wales! I was in a town that had no vowels in its name.

[@Vinemaple]

That's actually what neuroscientists say. The brains of people reading English look more like the brains of people reading Chinese than people reading European languages. Except probably Portuguese, which is just as idiosyncratic as English.

[@Vini-BR]

I used to be puzzled by the many pronunciations of ea. Compare: Fear, Bear, Heart, Steak, Pearl. Such a common vowel combination, such variety of sounds they make together and one can't ever guess the pronunciation from the writing.

[@mr.rocket5835]

Past tense Read as well

[@simbiant4]

@@mr.rocket5835 Feared, Beard, Hearted, Steaked, Pearled. Do not work...

[@mr.rocket5835]

@@simbiant4 that’s not my point. my point is that past tense read (which is spelled read too) has yet another “ea” sound than fear, bear, etc

[@simbiant4]

@@mr.rocket5835 I thought you would have gotten the joke in beard. But I guess not.

[@shermoore1693]

Yes! and Tear (the verb) and tear (the noun). I think we just have to accept the fact that English is a language for the crazy.

[@laurak1545]

I've always spelled it hiccup. When I saw hiccough in print, I thought it was a cutesy new portmanteau meaning a cross between a hiccup and a cough

[@lookoutforchris]

If you’re American it’s because of spelling reform after the Revolution. Plow for instance instead of Plough.

[@colly6022]

@@lookoutforchris in canada ive always seen hiccough spelled hiccup, and plough spelled plough.

[@RandomPlaceHolderName]

@@colly6022 Yup. We just get a mishmash of the two.

[@donkensler]

@@colly6022 Yeah, Canadians are in some suspended animation between the Brits and us Yanks. E.g., "tyre", "labour", "colour".

[@keithklassen5320]

@@donkensler Most of us actually spell it "tire", but I do tend to use the "our" spellings most of the time.

[@mckayleepugmire9947]

I'm a special ed teacher, and I grew up with an English teacher, a word nerd, 2 semi-bilingual parents, and 2 family members with reading disabilities. As a result, I've always been aware English is quirky, but nothing has made me more aware of how weird English is than teaching students with reading disabilities, and nothing has made me more annoyed at my own native language than having a struggling and/or frustrated and/or resigned student ask me why a word is spelled that way, and having no answer but "English is weird like that." I love this channel for at least giving me a better answer for those times.

[@w.reidripley1968]

I have long wondered how common dyslexia was among, say, Spanish or Turkish speakers. Too, with all our vowel sounds, we make about 44 noises and have only 26 letters, a couple of them redundant, to write them with. Blame those noble old Romans... And that we've had but stopped using 9 other letters, often because they distorted into misreadable forms (thorn, long S) or "damn if we know" (eth).

[@Wazkaty]

I love the explications for the same reasons! I am this kind of student haha. I'm French and always asked "but why" when I saw "illogical" words. It's tricky too! It is really interesting to understand how the words and meaning were constructed, whatever the language I think it helps a lot to understand the culture

[@w.reidripley1968]

@@Wazkaty I remember my first months studying French... all those silent letters, singly and in groups! But they're _systématique_ about it, and once you understand _la systéme,_ it's easier. English, lacking an authoritative Académie, is .ore scattershot.

[@Wazkaty]

@@w.reidripley1968 haha yes! It is exactly what happened for me! We struggle at school and then we memorize the all "exceptions" , and it's good! But for a foreign language... wow, memorisation is hard. I want to read English litterature and I struggle a bit, too much unknown vocabulary and syntax! I think it's hard in French too, I can feel it because some of my friends can't really read French litterature. It depends on your interests I guess

[@Wazkaty]

@@w.reidripley1968 A lot of French hate silent letters 😂

[@derbazi257]

This is amazing! All I can think about is: Englisch is a hard language. It can be learned through tough an thorough thought though. I hope thats right. I am a non-native speaker.

[@RobWords]

Bravough! That's soughperb!

[@vigzoptian5504]

I had to use a text to speech to read that

[@WasickiG]

Here’s my take at it: Molten snow fallen from the bough flowed through the trough, though. "That's enough", I thought.

[@SuperLittleTyke]

@@WasickiG Excellent!

[@gary.h.turner]

Almost! :- "English", not "Englisch"; "and", not "an"; "that's", not "thats". Otherwise, it's very good!

[@undrhil]

I am glad they called it "the great vowel shift" and not" the great vowel movement" .

[@JKNat9004]

😆😆😅😂😂

[@iliashdz9106]

The great vowel shift is when everything went to shift

[@algotkristoffersson15]

They shouldn’t have called it that either. It would be more accurate to call it “the Horrible Vowel Shift” because there’s nothing great about it.

[@mathisgilsbach116]

There is a big upside to the ridiculous English spelling, it brings us entertaining and informative videos such as this one!

[@RobWords]

Thank you and thanks for watching! Another upside is that it keeps me from spending my time doing something less constructive (probably binge-eating jaffa cakes).

[@allanrichardson9081]

Also promotes creativity in ads and merchandising, at least in the USA. A word currently in common use cannot be used alone as a trademark, nor can a phrase in common use, UNLESS it is spelled incorrectly. Hence all the “cremes” and “kremes” in product names. Imitations of foods with a legally and customarily used name cannot be named after the targeted food directly, so modified spellings of their names, such as “chikin” strips, or “meet” pies, are used for fake products. Even IBM got in on this, inventing the terms “byte” and “bubble” for groups of 8 and 4 bits treated as units by processor hardware. These terms spread throughout the industry, but not as trademarks, along with “half word” (16 bits), “fullword” (32 bits), and “double word” (64 bits). Bad spelling = good marketing!

[@Veni_Vidi_Vortice]

@@RobWords Yes, but are they cakes though, or ought we to think of them as biscuits? Please discuss thoroughly, work through the possiblities and then let us know of your thoughts on the matter. Sorry if this seems a bit naughty but I was taught to be a critical thinker and definitive answers need to be sought for the sake of clarity.

[@josearqco]

Not only that, English is phonetically amazing and beautiful; quite exotic. So, keep it up that way!

[@kathleenking47]

Ricky Ricardo did this on I love lucy

[@amywasserman1698]

My students and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this video!

[@edderiofer]

When you revealed that the spellings reflected their pronunciations at the time, I thought you would walk us through a timeline of when each of these words got their spellings.

[@RobWords]

That is honestly what I would have loved to have done and I looked into whether it was possible. But with the information we have, it just isn't. That's probably for the best, because it would take aaaages.

[@Cellottia]

@@creamwobbly But that's _augh_ though, not _ough_ (oops, how did that 'though' slip through?!)

[@williambavington5392]

@@RobWords Yes, I also felt this video seemed more like an introductory chapter to the topic rather than the whole thing. I'm sure some particular cases could be traced out though certainly not the whole lot. Perhaps you have material there for more separate (reasonably short) videos?

[@rhiannon.de.rohan-thomas]

I'm sure there's probably enough material to make a video on the different uses of 'ea' in English. I had a Dutch housemate who would pronounce the English word 'idea' like "eye-dee". Since I knew that in German it's 'Idee', I asked her if it was pronounced that way in Dutch too (they are similar, see * below). She asked me why I asked & I said that I thought she was just saying it the Dutch way. She asked how I said it & I let her know that we enunciate the 'a' at the end. She told me she had thought that the 'ea' in 'idea' rhymed with 'sea'. I replied with something like: "No, but the sea might give you nausEA" Giggles ensued. Anyway. Just an _idea_ for you. 😉 * Phonetic alphabet & English sound equivalents to explain the different pronunciations I was talking about in my anecdote: *idea* (English): īdēə, "eye-dee-ah" or "eye-dear" *Idee* (German): ideé, "ee-deeh" *idee* (Dutch): idee, "ee-dey" My friend's "English" pronunciation: īdē, "eye-dee"

[@w.reidripley1968]

That last pronunciation is also heard in countrified speech, mostly in the Old South and out West.

[@arkanon8661]

ah yes, "phonetic alphabet"

[@rhiannon.de.rohan-thomas]

@@w.reidripley1968 For context, could you please specify to which country you are referring? (I'm Australian)

[@sirknight4981]

@@arkanon8661 What?

[@notthatntg]

@@sirknight4981 it's not the ipa so they're confused as to what "phonetic alphabet" this is

[@thomasdougherty1761]

Thanks Rob. Now people will know why I pronounce my last name as "Dockerty" and not Dougherty as it is spelled. The ock or awk sound is Gaelic and used in Scotland and Ireland (where the name originates) but usually pronouced using the dough sound in the U.S. In Ireland it is now spelled Doherty and they use the ock sound. The British government changed the original spelling from O'Dochartaigh to Dougherty (1600's) and then to Doherty (1800's). Some people have resurrected the prefix O' which means grandson of.

[@Cellottia]

How interesting! I've wondered how to pronounce this name when I've come across it. So much history (and politics) wrapped up in one name... Amazing.

[@FD-vj6hd]

Even ‘Dockerty’ isn’t quite right. It’s more DoCHerty (in the back of your throat) like LoCH Lomond in Scotland.

[@biosinger]

Here in southern illinois in the US, there are some people in my town with that name. They pronounce it “DOOR-dee,” like the front door.

[@SomniiLinn]

It's interesting how the original spelling of O'Dochartaigh seems to fit better with our current view of spelling/ pronunciation. I would be much more likely to say that correct, than your current spelling which I'm afraid I would attempted to say "dough - erty", even if it would have sounded wrong - that's just how I read it x')

[@clwest3538]

How interesting! My great-grandmother's maiden name was Doherty - She pronounced it Doar'-ty where the oa combo sounded like you start to say O but ended ended with an A (almost like a breath sound or caught in throat) The way she said it the word sounded very Irish even though she was born in TX in 1800's (actually, family has been in US, from what I can find, since 1700's) ... The family now just pronounce Dar'ty - which sounds very southern.

[@chrisdelgado3473]

After 78 years of trying to figure it all ought, knowing that even YOU can't explain it is somewhat of a comfort. Thank you. I am now one of your biggest fans.

[@alfresco8442]

It's because in Old English the gh (old English form generally just h) was pronounced like modern Dutch gutteral g sound. Through and thorough are essentially the same word, it's just that in 'through' the r has migrated to the front of the vowel instead of behind it. The Old English was essentially thurh (gutteral ending) like the modern German durch...also a gutteral ending. The same process gives us related place name elements like Bury and borough. These were both originally burh...like the German burg.

[@donkensler]

Oh yeah, the "gh" "ch" ending English speakers have such a problem with because it sounds as if you're clearing your throat.

[@mennolente4807]

Hey! That's what I was about to point out! Glad I've checked other comments first. One thing to add: Thurh through → deur → door → door → through And the circle is complete.

[@mennolente4807]

Sorry, I switched deur and door accidentally

[@HenryLoenwind]

@@donkensler Which is doubly funny when you realise that half the time the sound is supposed to be made in the middle of the tongue. Like in the aforementioned durch and bur(g/ch)... ;)

[@g.c.5065]

@@mennolente4807 you can edit a comment, you don't have to write under it. And I don't understand the remark.

[@markleon411]

My husband has immigrated to Australia from Brazil and he is pretty good at learning languages (taught himself Greek) but when he becomes baffled by these inconsistencies in English, I'm at a loss to explain why there are so many pronunciations of the same letter groups. These videos are going to go a long way in helping me explain. Thank you so much.

[@dizzydaisy909]

How's he these days?

[@matthewgough9533]

Oh goodness. I was raised being told there were 6 ways to pronounce our last name. I realized the existence of the 7th around 2015 (thorough 'a'), the 8th around 2018 (hiccough 'up'), and today I learn of the bloomin' 9th (hough 'ock')

[@tampazeke4587]

I had a friend growing up in Mississippi with the last name Gough. They pronounced it "Gow" (or at least close to that). Of course Mississippians are famous for butchering the proper pronunciations of names (e.g. Brett Favre), so I don't know how accurate that was. We also pronounced Garcia "Garsha". LOL

[@derekdurst9984]

We have a street in San Francisco...Gough...pronounced "Gawf"!

[@ballantynemoyes8019]

I grew up in Scotland and we pronounced hough as hoch (same as in loch) - potted hough was a favourite dish.

[@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311]

😆

[@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311]

@@tampazeke4587 oh God that's awful😆 it's a bit like when, on any American cookery show, I hear the non-word "par-mi-zhan" spoken, which always absolutely sets my teeth on edge! Of course I can respect "aluminum", " 'erbs", "zucchini", and all your rhotic "r"s. - where Americans really enunciate all the "r"s like "burr-gurr" for "burger" where we would say "ber-guh" - although I have noticed that "re-frijj-er-ay-terr" over the last decade or so seems to be gradually getting replaced by our, it has to be said, far more sensible "fridge"😉 There are good reasons for all of the above. But parmezhan is just awful - if that cheese is going to be Anglicised - and there's no reason we should have to call it Parmigiano - why not just par-me-zan? It's just a mistake, substituting the "zh" sound for the "s" in "parmesan" for the "s" sound in "measure" or "pleasure" for absolutely no reason other than nor knowing not to😏 a bit like "coo-de-grah" for "coup-de-grace"...😉

[@hengineer]

The Chaos is an excellent poem detailing the weirdness of English Pronunciation. My favorite reading of it is by Lindybeige

[@gauraprema1932]

Currently I teach ESL and I'm quite happy to have a video I can refer my students to whenever they complain about the -ough situation. It complete shortens my answer to -It's not my fault.

[@w.reidripley1968]

The tough coughs as he ploughs through the dough. Sooner or later we should mention the poem _The Chaos._

[@agharries]

Last week I was just talking about “OUGH” to one of my Norwegian colleagues. It started by him mentioning “schwa”, and talking about English like a professor. I said I had no idea what he was talking about. As a native English speaker I have never studied it, because I grew up with it. It is very interesting to hear the viewpoint of those that actually study the language to find what we are saying and why.

[@WGGplant]

yeah english is strang in not just our spellings, but also in the fact we reduce pretty much every vowel whenever possible. which only makes spelling harder. which i would argue makes it harder for native speakers to remember spelling than foreign speakers. as many foreign speakers are taught to enunciate almost every sound in english. but native speakers done have a big difference bt the shwa'd 'a' 'e' 'u' 'o' (sometimes i can be distinguished but its still a pretty subtle change) how are we supposed to remember how to spell a word when we could literally replace any vowel with any other vowel and it still pretty much sound the same?

[@jobskiblah3510]

i really didn't notice these to be mind boggling until now seeing your content. growing up learning english at school it was never really an issue that me and the other kids thought as an issue.

[@patrickchambers5999]

Many years ago there was a skit involving Lucille Ball and her husband Ricky Riccardo on her TV program where he was reading a bedtime story to their child. It had lots of those OUGH words and Ricky goofed every time he encountered one and was corrected by Lucy. It was hilarious as he made those attempts using the last correction on the next word.

[@ronkelley5348]

One of the challenges of British English spellings is that they reflect the point at which they were set into print and then became 'fixed'. Pronunciation continued to evolve, but the spelling was fixed. This explains not only the oddities of 'ough' but also the silent 'k' in words such as knife and knight, plus silent 'gh' in words again like knight, night, right etc.

[@richg7163]

In rural SW Scotland some people still pronounce the gh in night, right, light with the guttural CH sound, like nicht, richt, licht.

[@mastertrams]

Oh, Jay Foreman had a good scene relating to this and the name "Worcester". Hold on, let's see if I can find it Link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4qxq6Sdipyhl5Y

[@steveslight9312]

@@richg7163 my surname causes some confusion with foreigners.

[@harrybrown4952]

@@steveslight9312 Is it literally S-light or Slit??? Sorry if I get it wrong

[@steveslight9312]

@@harrybrown4952 it is SLIGHT as in sleight of hand. In old textural documents it can be slite. My family can be traced back to 1600s.

[@jacekskrzymowski6715]

You should've mentioned that the root cause of various pronunciations was gradual weakening of /x/ sound, spelled gh. During this process, different ways of compensation were applied, for example lengthening of the preceding vowel (as in night or thought) or using /f/ (as enough) as an approximate. BTW, traces of occasional mixing of /f/ and /x/ can be found in Germanic languages (achter vs. after, kracht vs. Kraft). There are also Slavic examples like Polish kafel vs. German Kachel, adding also /xf/ and /k/ flavours.

[@BrBill]

Add the Dutch G, and it becomes even cloudier.

[@cigmorfil4101]

@@BrBill Like this? kzbin.info/www/bejne/d53agGOuq9JmnNk

[@jorantsegkan9000]

Add the Swedish sj, skj, sk before front vowels, and you get the funny combined sound /xfw/ in many dialects.

[@jorriffhdhtrsegg]

Scandanavian Gs are half disappeared too and Don't use the /x/ whilst in Dutch a G is /x/

[@jorantsegkan9000]

@@jorriffhdhtrsegg Hæ?! Hvilket skandinaviske språk kan du da? Sj, skj, kä, kö, ky, på svensk høres som x, f, og w, alle sammen.

[@livrowland171]

Yup, the complicated spellings are an area where English is really difficult. Another is the stress within individual words and sentences, if a learner wants to sound somewhat like a native speaker. I learnt French and Italian, and the latter greatly impressed me when i found that it is, as far as i recall, spelt in a perfectly phonetic way. You must learn some pronunciation rules, but then the words are said just as they are written. However there is one additional difficulty in knowing which syllable the stress falls on.

[@WreckItRolfe]

It doesn't help that America has some strange stresses - usually towards the start. (e.g. Making 'Adult' sound like 'A dolt')

[@Mixer-he2wb]

Neither does it help when one hears different pronunciations across during regions of the US.

[@milantrcka121]

@@Mixer-he2wb Regional dialects abound in many countries. In Europe, back in the day, a village may have had a different dialect than a village some 50 km distant. Even in London - George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, Eliza and Prof. Higgins.

[@mgntstr]

like fall... it is using two ll's to tell the reader the vocal is short, but it is pronounced with a long a. Finnish is perfectly phonetical and they hate learning English like no other I know of.

[@helenswan705]

I notice this with American readers of English audiobooks

[@KatzRool]

Looking into it (skimming Wiktionary), all instances appear to have at least been /Vx/ in Old English, but not all the same vowels even then. They seem to have come pretty close to each other in Middle/Early Modern English when all of this orthography was being finalised and then split every which way. Insane how quickly people change the way they speak.

[@galloping3265]

I get endless amusement from this youtube teacher😂! If my English teacher Mum were still alive we would enjoy these videos together for sure!

[@erlinggaratun6726]

Wonderful video. I have been aware of this phenomenon for 30 years, and always wondered as to the explanation. Thank you. And I'm grateful that you came from Loughborough - that might be just the reason why you are the first person to offer me an explanation of this ;)

[@RobWords]

Very happy to help

[@baldyhead]

I was very surprised when he said he was from near Loughborough because he has lost the accent completely. Here we pronounce it "Luffbruh".

[@doylesaylor]

What a delightful person commenting on language. And so helpful wading through the thickets of using language. Bravo, well done.

[@chamiduudagedara]

Found you thanks to Matt Grey. Just binged all of your videos, they're lovely little videos. Really enjoyed the short format. Thank you!

[@RobWords]

This single comment makes them all worthwhile. Thank you!

[@if5566]

This is how learning/teaching should be done. Each video I have watched has been wonderful, entertaining, and "brain engaging".

[@fabricehaubois2442]

Wow… as an English language learner for 40+ yrs, I am still learning… yr videos, on top of being funny, are informative little gems… T H A N K Y O U

[@ksbrook1430]

A great introduction! Thank you for compiling the different words with "ough".

[@sebastianjoseph2828]

This is interesting. Since I learned German, and learned about their 'ch' sound, I figured that the English equivalent had been 'gh'. And from that I could see how over time that sound (which doesn't really exist in modern English aside from the "ch" in "Loch Ness") could morph differently for each word. So you have (G) "ghost" and "ghoul" at the start of words, (silent) "though"/"through"/"thought", (F) "cough", "enough", and (K) "loch".

[@rogervanaman6739]

Yeah, that's definitely the case for some -gh- words, I'm not sure about any of the -ough- words, though (maybe cough?). Knight comes to mind, the gh and the k were at one point pronounced.

[@sebastianjoseph2828]

@Dan SouthLondon You're right most people pronounce "loch" as "lock". Is the proper pronunciation close to the German or Yiddish "Ch" sound? That's what I always assumed.

[@rogervanaman6739]

@@sebastianjoseph2828 That is my understanding. Also, the IPA article on wikipedia gives loch and Chanukah as examples of the sound.

[@HenryLoenwind]

knight - Knecht night - Nacht laugh - lach dough - Teig (-g regionally is pronounced -ch) enough - genug through - durch plough - Pflug

[@MAKgargos]

Ich lache im Chor

[@black_platypus]

But ooooh, this setup is sooo cozy! 🥰 Having a lovely coffee on a small balcony on a sunny morning, listen to your favorite brother talk about another interesting language thing with appreciation and enthusiasm ❤ Peak holiday feeling 😊

[@bryansproles2879]

I thought you were going to mention the link of when Old English (pronounced more similarly to modern German at the time) was being spoken in England, and the French took over...but they had a lot of trouble with the GH and CH sounds, again, similar to what you'd hear today in German. So they would either change it to something that they could pronounce: Enough (GenUG in German), or would leave it silent, as in DauGHter (ToCHter in German)

[@alanthomas2064]

Norman's also couldn't pronounce the SH sound as in Shropshire! So they called it Salop( horrible)

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Or "Dochter" in Dutch, still pronounced as it's spelt in English.

[@MysterMysteryHunter]

As an English teacher, this is brilliant for a quick snippet in a lesson to highlight my vain efforts to help the student understand why our language is the way it is 😀

[@DaeBenesse]

I’m so here for a Great Vowel Shift video!

[@RobWords]

Then let's DO IT!

[@maddiejoy6619]

The more of your videos I watch, the more I'm glad I learned English as my first language instead of trying to figure this all out later. Hats off to anyone learning English as a second language. This language is a mess 😅.

[@EnglishwithAlan]

Thanks for this. I teach ESL and have wondered this many times. I assumed it was down to the different languages that composed English. This makes more sense. By the way, how do you know all these things?

[@janeycollins3618]

I discovered you from Australia a few weeks ago and am transfixed. My love of language began with the study of German in school and Uni, was enabled by Bill Bryson's early books, hastened by Susie Dent on Cats does Countdown. then you come along - out of Berlin - with a great British accent, humour and a delightful take on all things words. Keep it up. It is appreciated, nay loved - and may the road rise with you

[@Fledhyris]

Loving your videos! They are so interesting, informative, and a delight to listen to. I can't help feeling that you're divulging deep secrets of some esoteric society of linguists. Thanks for explaining the idiocy of the word hiccough! That one has always puzzled me. I'm not sure if this is apocryphal or if one of my parents actually once met an Australian who enquired the name to 'Loogabarooga' - which in the context of Australian makes just as much sense as its actual pronunciation. Regardless of the origins, it's an anecdote I've never forgotten. I'm here for a video on the Great Vowel Shift!

[@mcooley95]

This is my new favourite channel, @RobWords thank you so much. I always struggle with spelling so you can understand why I love your channel so much

[@kerendn]

A native Russian speaker told me once that the English spelling that broke her spirit was judge. I lived in the US as a child, so for me, English spelling is "normal". But in fact, it's far from logical and definitely not phonetical. Thanks for the entertaining video.

[@mgntstr]

English is close to Kanji. 😅😅

[@julietardos5044]

Juj.

[@w.reidripley1968]

I'm told "strengths" can be tough for Russian speakers too. They have experience of consonant clusters but the alien 'th' sound in the middle of one gives trouble. Troughble?

[@nicholasvinen]

Yeah it probably should be judje!

[@alexeypopov314]

@@w.reidripley1968 After I learned how to say "th" which is alien to Russian phonetics the rest was a breeze. But you should try to say out loud Armenian last name Mkrtchyan (Мкртчян) who was a great actor. I can say his name easily but no Westerner I know can.

[@MathewJones-yr6ci]

Rob and Jess, you're my heroes. Thank you. Things I would like to see: - Idioms. How do English idioms differ from other languages when describing the same concept (e.g., "splitting hairs")?

[@RobertVolker]

I’m here from Matt Gray. Good stuff!

[@RobWords]

I ❤ Matt G

[@RobertVolker]

Apparently he ❤️ you too. He gave you a shoutout and card toward the end of his q&a video.

[@RobWords]

@@RobertVolker I saw! Can't believe he's never done apple bobbing.

[@ant1sokolow]

I'm late but THANK YOU for this one. The "ough" is one of the things that always impede my ability to speak english. In french whe have a fair share of words that didn't sound like how they are written but it is more like a list of exceptions, nothing as thoroughly mixed-up than the "ough".

[@tracybartels7535]

When I was in the UK, I travelled by myself via bus, coach, and train. I would occasionally want to take public transport to a place with an "ough" in the name and where I would have to speak to a person instead of a machine to purchase the ticket. Since I never knew how to say those place names and am far more neurotic than most Americans, my options were to either to walk or to find a place nearby without the "ough" in the name and get a ticket there. At the time, it was annoying, but now I remember the "ough" game fondly.

[@g.c.5065]

Were you able to get this neuroticism under control ?

[@misterwhyte]

Why not just write it down for the clerk to read it?

[@gevansmd1]

@@misterwhyte clerk or clark?

[@misterwhyte]

@@gevansmd1 A clerk is an employee in a store, a bank, etc.

[@gevansmd1]

@@misterwhyte I've heard it pronounced clark in English movies.

[@anhpam9205]

Edinburgh, Scarborough. probably many other places too. Glad to be a native English speaker! such interesting content in your videos, rob and you present everything so well and in an entertaining way. Thanks!

[@RobWords]

That's very kind, thank you! Middlesbrough is another one.

[@stolz_ar]

I feel that, before the Great Vowel Shift, English must have been easier to learn for Spanish speaking (maybe Italian too) like myself. Perhaps, back then, vowel pronunciations made more sense to us. This was usually the problem most of my friends growing up had when trying to learn English. Some people can't adjust their brains to pronouncing vowels differently and the result is a Spanish-like English, if it makes any sense.

[@ghenulo]

My sister took German in college and couldn't get a grasp on its vowels being pronounced differently than in English (like how German "die" is pronounced /diː/ instead of /daɪ/). She said that her professor said that a lot of people her age couldn't learn a foreign language, which confused her, as she was still young.

[@w.reidripley1968]

U alone boasts four different pronunciations and the other vowels aren't far behind. We resolutely eschew diacritical marks to help the learner, too.

[@w.reidripley1968]

So kids learning Reading get introduced to long vowels and short vowels right away, and how to look at a word for clues (maybe) which ones. The English method is a bit clumsy, but it mostly works, apart from words that are a direct lift from Greek. I do wish we wouldn't affect the short I in the middle of 'divisive,' though. Isn't 'margarine' enough?

[@calhutch3185]

when studying Manarin in Taiwan with a Korean, a German, a Texan, and myself from Western US. I realized most accent problems come from vowells. Consonants are more set, whereas vowells are highly variable from blending one sound to the next and different languages seem to love to find different points of inflection to land on.

[@kevinmcgrath8310]

Glad when you mentioned Scotland you remembered to add bagpipe music so people aren't confused with Scotland ,Ethiopia 😂 love the content Rob,words and language fascinate me 👍

[@RobWords]

Yeah, fair point. I decided not to do it on subsequent videos 🤣 Thanks for watching.

[@JohannesBee]

I love this video - I've shown it when teaching students about homophones. I hope you make more content soon I love your channel!

[@RobWords]

That's so, so lovely to hear! And yes, more is in the pipeline 😊

[@richardcurtis7854]

Profoundly satisfying. There is no use-based order to the chaos. I will stop trying to figure out the pattern. Awesome information

[@Tyrisalthan]

When people say that finnish language is the hardest language in the world, I say that is still way easier than english, for this exact reason. There is no way of actually know how anything is pronaunced if you haven't heard it being said in english. In finnish you can always know, since everything only ever have one way of being pronaunced.

[@mikeharrison1868]

I'd say Finnish is the hardest European language. I'd say Japanese is the hardest language for anyone except a Chinese person to learn, because there's the difficulty of learning the Kanji plus a somewhat difficult grammar on top. (Chinese has no declensions etc.) Arabic is also quite difficult. Writing is alphabetic, but only long vowels are written down, and the way some (but not all) letters squish into each other within words is quite complicated at first. And the grammar is different from indo-european grammars. I'd recommend the trio to aspiring linguists...

[@misterwhyte]

@@mikeharrison1868 On the contrary, Japanese is a fairly easy language. It is highly regular and since it's part of the agglutinative languages, if you know the most common prefixes and suffixes, you can build complex sentences fairly quickly. There are also no variation in the pronunciation, unlike many other languages. As for the reading/writing part, it's clearly the most difficult part, but first it has a simplified alphabet that only contains 96 characters, and second you "only" need to know 1500 to 2000 kanjis to be able to read a newspaper or a novel, where Chinese requires twice as much (over 3500 symbols). If Japanese was one day to only use its simplified alphabet, it would honestly be one of the easiest language to learn.

[@mikeharrison1868]

@@misterwhyte I don't have any personal experience of Japanese. But I understand there's like six or seven levels of politeness, depending on who's addressing whom. Foreigners can get away with it, but, I understand, it would be very hard to properly master it all in the same way Japanesee people have. I agree about pronunciation, and about katakana and hiragana. Kanji is complicated by the fact that characters were borrowed from the Chinese at different times, with different meanings and pronunciations. Chinese can also have several different pronunciations for characters. Our class cracked up when one of our classmates (Japanese, as it turns out) declared that Chinese people were lovely to eat, rather than that they love to eat!

[@mike-williams]

French is worse, words full of silent letters, verbs in multiple spellings for different cases but pronounced the same

[@blackalien6873]

@@mike-williams French is actually pretty easy to learn. At least for a native English speaker. I thought myself how to read and write the language.

[@grahammillington790]

This series is excellent. I'm a real fan now. Well done.

[@wordreet]

Haha, I forgot furlough! I was talking to a Polish friend about how ridiculous English spelling and our pronunciation of our own words can seem, and gave him all the "ough" words I could think of. Including rough (ruff), cough (koff), chough (chuff), bough (bow) plough (plow) sough (sow), ouch (owch) pouch (powch), through (throo) thorough (thurrah?) borough (burrah?) etc etc. Actually, I've just realised that if something hit you in the stomach, "ough" would seem a more onomatopoeic way to spell the noise you make rather than oof! Wait! My Firefox wants to correct plough, but doesn't offer plow! 🤦‍♂😂 And obviously it doesn't know that a chough is a large Raven like bird either. Then of course there is a bird called a Ruff (large Sandpiper), where the male has a ring of display feathers around his neck. Fashionable humans copied this and killed many different birds so they could make themselves a "ruff". 😔

[@awc49]

Love your posts and I am so glad I don’t have to learn English... fascinating to find why it’s such an extraordinary language.

[@Mladjasmilic]

I have one theory: As in modern English 'oo' is used for 'u' sound (put), French used 'ou' for 'u'. U is derived from Y, which all come from Greek Y, which sounded like German Ü. For Greeks to write down sound 'u', they would write 'ΟΥ', and French copied it. In Cyrillic, sound 'u' used to be written as 'оу', latter simplified to just 'у'. Fun fact, Russia letter for 'ju' (sound like you) used to be written as 'IOY', but now it is 'Ю'. As for GH, it used to represent sound like CH in words like 'loch', it is hard H sound, usually IPA 'x'. GH was put there to differentiate spelling from CH used in 'check'. For transcription of Slavic language which use that hard sound 'H', modern English uses KH. So, plough used to be pluH, enough used be enuH, through used to be thruH, cough used to be kuH, and so on...

[@ccheyenne]

I totally buy this! It feels plausible at least for a large group of these

[@TheCstri]

Your videos are a gold mine. I wish I found them many years ago. As a portuguese native speaker, I can say that before the "Great shift vowel" you mention, the way it was said at that time was as in portuguese now we say those vowels. ( Sorry for my english, I guess I need to practice more)

[@ZombiesWerePeopleToo]

My favourite example of this is that there’s a video game called dark souls, and it has two characters with "ough" in the name: smough and gough. Neither of their names are ever pronounced in-game, but the community has pretty consistently agreed that they are pronounced "smouh" (to rhyme with though) and "goff" (to rhyme with cough).

[@DemonetisedZone]

I came across Rob's videos on KZbin a few weeks ago and honestly, he is brilliant! Im a working class guy from Glasgow and can easily telate to Rob's sense of humour Glasgow is a tough crowd to amuse so take your roses Rob! I can envision Rob sitting in Dictionary Corner in Countdown Keep up the wonderful vids! 👍😉

[@TheRamblemanWhoSings]

it's honestly fascinating learning the reasons why English is such a messed up & complicated language

[@shermoore1693]

Thank you SO MUCH!!! I teach English to Italians and, like you, feel obliged to apologize on behalf of the English people for the spelling of these (and other) words.

[@wardsdotnet]

Slough is a great one because each way to pronounce it means a different thing entirely! It's either a city in England, a verb, or a body of water and each has a different ough

[@VernCrisler]

How is SLOUGH of despond pronounced?

[@wardsdotnet]

@@VernCrisler I don't think I've ever heard that phrase

[@VernCrisler]

@@wardsdotnet From Pilgrim's Progress; refers to a swampy area. Memory aid: "You cannot plow in a slough"....

[@wardsdotnet]

@@VernCrisler that's sloo

[@joshuaharper372]

I think most would rhyme it with too, but a minority rhyme it with plough/plow and how.

[@PaulBlaise]

I learnt English with British teachers, but I had never learned (or memorized?) the British pronunciation of "thorough". Thanks for the lesson!

[@martinstubs6203]

The English way of spelling has one great advantage: Once you have learnt a word you can tell at a glance whether it is spelt correctly because you see the word as a whole and it is right or it isn't. This is not the case, in e.g., German where you are supposed to pronounce words as they are written but this doesn't really work the other way around because of double (or triple) letters the letter "ß", pronunciation quirks, and more. I have seen cases of native German speakers whose spelling was better in English than in their own language.

[@derekdurst9984]

American English = Spelled!

[@mquietsch6736]

I think that's mainly due to this ridiculous way elementary schools have been teaching writing skills in Germany. The first year they tell the pupils to write as they speak, which results in the strangest spellings since children don't speak very clearly (my son wrote "füa" instead of "für" because he really said so), and after children have got accustomed to this and automated it they get told in their second year that this was all wrong and they now need to use the spelling rules. Like, "wir", "ihr" and "sie" all three have a long "i" and all three are spelt differently. Very many children don't manage to make the jump completely. Both my children took an exceedingly long time. I've heard that now when even elementary school teachers often can't spell correctly any more the education ministries have started to move away from this (sorry) completely idiotic doctrine (no, not really sorry).

[@Satori_kun]

Speaking for me I can't confirm this hypothesis, writing english without using a translator with spelling correction or build spelling correction like here in this comment section I would be unable to spell some words. Sometimes I know a word because I heard it in a video and have rough idea how its spelled but then struggle with silent letters or the use of an "c" or "s" , "e" vs "i" vs "ie" or some other weird combination that creates eee sound and sometimes I spend more than 10 minutes trying to find out the spelling of a word I only heard with google translator and it is such a pain (even more when it doesn't have an exactly equivalent word in german).

[@barbarahouk1983]

Satori, I am a native American English speaker who had great difficulty in my youth with spelling. It was worth my time to categorize English words into where they came from. English dictionaries have a key at the beginning of the book that tells you from where the word came. This gives one the clue as to the category its spelling is. Each category has its own spelling rules. I just had problems with "ough" because of the information in this video makes it clear why this phonetic group is so messed up. I hope this helps you.

[@sluggo206]

I studied German and I didn't encounter this. German spelling is pretty straightforward. One thing in German is there are a wide variety of dialects, basically every town. People learn Standard German in school, which is often very different, especially in northern Germany. So if a kid makes a mistake in spelling, it may be due to interference from their dialect.

[@Superradbadcadet]

Rob you are my most recent KZbin discovery. Basically, I love your content. Thank you for making this channel can't wait to show my friends! 😁

[@tocaat2410]

Only just discovered your channel, which fascinates me. Have you thought of doing a video about place names - or perhaps people's surnames? England is a very fertile hunting ground for peculiar names (geographical as well as personal), whose spellings provide no clue as to pronunciation. For example, except for locals in the relevant vicinities, there are probably very few people in England who would know how to pronounce the name of the North Devon village of Woolfardisworthy. And very few (myself included, until someone told me) who could pronounce the name of the market town in Northumberland which is spelled Alnwick. Answers to these two are: Woolsery (or Woolzery) and Annick.

[@MerkhVision]

With a lot of British place names, it seems like over time people just got into the habit of saying the names faster and faster, eventually skipping over some parts entirely, ending up with the modern pronunciations that ignore like half of the letters. Funnily enough, most French words are the same way, ignore half the word lol. When you’ve seen enough funky British place names, you get used to what parts they tend to ignore and what parts they usually say. I guessed Alnwick right, but that other one u mentioned was pretty extreme lol. I get it though, since the original name was rather long and a real mouthful lol, makes sense that they’d want to shorten it.

[@Cellottia]

And Trottiscliffe (Trosley), Meopham (Meppum) Wouldham (Wooldum), Burham (Burrum) in my little bit of Kent... There must be a whole subset of English pronunciation in place names throughout Britain!

[@mauriciocubillos3041]

I just can't believe I came across your wonderful channel.... I'm a teacher of English from Chile.... I've been teaching for about 20 years now.... And I've always had these little doubts and/or questions about these fun linguistic snippets.... Loved it ... I guess I have to keep up with so many interesting videos now... 😂😂😂.... Thanks so much!!! ❤️

[@rougerambo7596]

Rob please explain the mystery behind the word Worcestershire (sauce) or as a matter of fact other words ending with ‘shire’ :)

[@RobWords]

That's definitely going on the list!

[@alfresco8442]

Shire comes from the Old English scir. It's related to modern words such as shear and share, so it denotes a partition, off-cut or division of some kind...in this case what we now call a county, even though we still refer to "the shires". It's kind of like the German word for a division (military or otherwise) is an Abteilung...literally an off-dealing. Deal/share...little difference. Incidentally, the word sheriff comes from a shire reeve...an old official in charge of each shire. It's pretty much just ceremonial these days, but every county still has one.

[@tampazeke4587]

Worce-ster-shir as opposed to worshester-shire, the way many Americans pronounce it.

[@livrowland171]

@@tampazeke4587 But normally the sauce is just pronounced wooster sauce

[@MerkhVision]

@@livrowland171 I think u mean “Wooster-sher sauce” lol

[@thetirelesscrusader4745]

you are now becoming my second-best english teacher in the world. the first one is "let them talk tv".

[@RobWords]

Happy to come second to Let Them Talk TV. Big fan myself.

[@davideduardos4621]

Oh, come on, please, explain us much more about The Great Vowel Shift. Of course we all would love to bits to learn more about this amazing topic. I should say you're superb, I cant lie. Thanks

[@stevenmonson5149]

The black plague for starters ,the poor uneducated had a stronger immunity vs the wealthy well educated, so the poor's phonetic won out over the wealthy educated original parent language pronunciation, that's a short answer.

[@kenhallermd8897]

Thank you for this video. I have always found the wide range of pronunciations of OUGH to be fascinating and amusing, and I was especially thrilled to see you reference "Loughborough." It turns out that, here is St. Louis, Missouri, we have a Loughborough Road, and yes, the two OUGHs are pronounced differently. However, this is the United Staes so they are pronounced a bit differently from even your variants. Here Loughborough is pronounced "Loff-burrow." Vive la différence!

[@JohnGowland-r4c]

When my Dutch grandfather arrived in England in 1907, he had to recite Though the tough, cough and hiccough plough me through Through life's rough route my way I still pursue. Incidentally he referred to his waxed moustache as his "hirsute" appearance. He loved "prestidigitation" rather than conjuring.

[@vusa92troy]

I live in Vancouver Washington State USA. We have neighborhood called the Hough Neighborhood. It was named after Patrik "Paddy" Hough, an 19th century Irish Immigrant and teacher. I've always pronounced the surname Hough as "huff". No I surely will pronounce it correctly as "howk". Thanks Rob! Troy, from near Boring Oregon.

[@Nuclear241]

1:54 So, English spelling/pronunciation was more reasonable in the past. I've heard about the printing machine changing the spellings slightly but the vowel shift is new to me (and interesting, and infuriating). Good video by the way!

[@RobWords]

If we'd just waited a few short centuries to standardise our spellings, they might have made a little more sense now. "Thank yoo for wotching!"

[@jackfoster20]

Congrats on finally getting around to making a video on the Great Vowel Shift, Rob

[@markstott6689]

I have my own word: Hiccurp. Ever since I had my Gallbladder removed 20 years ago the phenomena started where it starts with it sounding like a hiccup but ends like a burp. They're random and come with no warning. It's a little embarrassing at times.

[@johngavin1175]

Do you have hiccfarts as well?

[@markstott6689]

@John Gavin Thankfully no. However, laughfarts are a rare occurrence.

[@Michaelkaydee]

Have always used -ough to show how crazy English is for non English speakers find it... thanks to your video I now have even more examples 😁

[@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078]

Hellough and thanks for the loughly video! Ough, that was actually kindough smoughth.

[@RobWords]

Loughly comment! Yough are welcoughme.

[@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078]

@@RobWords Also, I noticed that all the words ending in OUGHT have the same pronunciation; that sounds like a trick to know the pronunciation of many (not all) OUGH words. Or maybe they're actually OUGHT words, which might also make it easier for learners.

[@RobWords]

​@@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078 I thought we had a breakthrough there, then DROUGHT came to spoil the party... But it seems like there are few enough exceptions to make it a useful guide! Nice one.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

*videough

[@shervinmarsh2456]

I teach in Taiwan. My kids barely know their ABCs are a terrified of trying to pronounce a word without the teacher first telling them how to say it. You have some good ideas I can use. Thanks. I'll keep looking for your videos as they come out.

[@peterharrison5833]

I taught English to Japanese people while I was stationed there in '02-'06. They always struggled with pronunciation because Japanese is very consistent in its pronunciation, and this was a very tough concept to absorb, for them. I finally made the parallel point that they had a similar issue--in learning kanji. Kids in Japan learn a few kanji per week when in they're in the lower grades, usually something like 25 per week. By the time they graduate high school, they can read about 2,000 of them. And college graduates know about 10,000. Incidentally, those are the numbers in the States for the average HS and college graduates in terms of vocabulary.

[@keltzy]

I used to feel like kanji and English spelling were very similar in that you can learn the rules that tell you how something is meant to be pronounced, but at a certain point, you kind of just have to know the word. Of course, there are still so many more kanji to learn.

[@mal2ksc]

At least "how to say it" is a solved problem though, kana are pretty good about that.

[@joshuaharper372]

Yes, that sounds about right. We would have 15 or 20 spelling words a week in elementary school. English spelling is nearly as frustrating for English speakers as it is for everyone else.

[@peterharrison5833]

@@joshuaharper372 Yes, you're right. I used to tell my students that English has phonetic rules concerning spelling, but that it followed the rules maybe 40% of the time.

[@w.reidripley1968]

@@joshuaharper372 ...until you take a school year of phonics. It fills a need in rehearsing the various ways English has to write a phoneme, and which words go with which ways. Phonics made an excellent speller out of me.

[@otucanal-wv2rt]

Love your videos, mate. You delve into some very interesting rabbit holes. As a non-native speaker of English, I find these curiosities tremendously intriguing. However, I wouldn't bother apologising for them. The English language is fascinating precisely because of its inconsistencies. Your historical perspective sheds a wonderful light on these processes. Moreover, as an Englishman, you have far bigger and more influential evil deeds of the empire to deal with. By no means am I implying that you're personally to blame for any of your country's atrocities. Privilege and colonialism are tricky things. And all this would take you down a path that is obviously not the focus of this channel. Just food for thought from a follower below the equator.

[@robbieboydudeguy]

I had no idea that the British pronunciation of thorough ended in an “uh” sound instead of a round “oh.” Cool!

[@jorriffhdhtrsegg]

Americans put long 'oh' everywhere don't they! Same with place name words ending -borough, sometimes abbreviated -boro which doesn't make any more sense to us that use an -uh sound

[@helenamcginty4920]

As a sort of reversal exercise look for open university video on OP or Original Pronunciation used to make sense of Shakespeare's puns, jokes and what appear today as odd rhymes. R P hadn't been invented in Tudor England plus Shakespeare also used some dialect words from his native West Midlands as I recently learned. Using OP instead of RP in plays of the Tudor period makes them more easily understood. David Crystal is the professor who did the resesrch.

[@FD-vj6hd]

Hough is pronounced Hoch (in the back of your throat, like Loch Lomond, sort of a German sound to English people) rather than Hock. English people can never seem to quite get this, always saying Lock Lomond, Lock Ness etc instead of Loch Ness

[@keouine]

When learning German, the -ough spelling helps with recognizing German cognates. Possibly also helpful if learning Dutch. I enjoy History of English Podcast as well. Its host has the opportunity go into way for depth and deal with specific words. I recommend it.

[@Q_is_a_good_name]

Even though Im british I spelt it as Hiccup

[@653j521]

I feel the last line of the video should be, "And then there are American and Scottish pronunciations." Most notably borough and thorough as burro and thurro. Drouth to drought in my parents' lifetime--apparently it is pronounced drooth in Scotland.

[@richg7163]

I thought drooth means dryness, or more specifically, thirst.

[@w.reidripley1968]

Burritough: in fusion cuisine, meat-pie filling wrapped in a flour tortilla. 🤔😁

[@Mygoalwogel]

You've come up in my feed a number of times. Each time I scrolled right past thinking, "boooring!" Finally gave you a try today. Love the sound of your voice and content. Subscribed.

[@thecosplaycrafter8017]

English pronunciation is near impossible to learn. It can be understood through tough, thorough thought, though.

[@nucderpuck]

😂

[@rosiefay7283]

Nice to see Chris McManus's phrase doing the rounds.

[@c.p.1738]

My American friend taught me to correctly say: the tough coughs as he ploughs the dough (from Dr. SEUSS). Mindboggling! Greetings from 🇩🇪

[@rmdodsonbills]

In addition to hiccup, the US has also reformed plough into plow. We're in the process of simplifying a number of other words with "gh" in them. In addition to "ruff" and "enuff" it's also not uncommon to see "nite" and "lite" though both of those seem to be limited to marketing (and "lite" is *almost* exclusively limited to use in foods for losing weight). "Doughnut" is becoming "donut" but you still make them out of dough.

[@crazycrafts5945]

no one uses ruff or enuff

[@rmdodsonbills]

@@crazycrafts5945 Okay, well, I implied that they were common, which they are not. I have seen them both in the wild.

[@costakeith9048]

@Alex 01 Thru has some currency on signs, where there is limited space. Both on commercial signs as with drive-thru, but also on road signs as well, such as with no thru traffic. But I haven't really seen it used outside that context. As for ruff, that's the sound a dog makes, not an alternative spelling for rough.

[@raij465]

I’ve never spelled it hiccup, and haven’t seen it written that way. “Thru” drives me crazy, because of the rule “English words don’t end in i, j, u, or v” other than some rule breakers. I have seen ruff, but just assumed that the person using it was a poor speller. Nite and lite are becoming more common, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it’s a very logical way of spelling them, but on the other hand, it just ignores the whole class of words which use ‘igh’ and looks very stupid in print.

[@anthonyjackson280]

Unless 'ruff' is referring to a frilled edging or collar.

[@MacLord]

Yank here that taught English as a second language class. Students invariably asked about ‘ough’. My answer at the time was many word (most) words entered English determined the pronunciation. Nice to know I was somewhat correct. Something to stick in my bag for future classes.

[@johnp6260]

I thought about asking you to do a video of "ough", having only recently come across your channel, and voila. I've often pondered the different pronunciations of "ough". Enjoying the videos. Thanks.

[@ElfSwarm]

Your videos are awesome! Thanks for your work and wit!

[@jdschneider5858]

Thank you so much! I wish I knew about the Great Vowel Shift when I was teaching ESL.I empathized with my students who were trying to learn English pronunciation and spelling. It just didn't make sense. Now it does, somewhat 🙂

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Child pronounced like "chilled" as in its direct connection to children, pronounced like "chilled (w)ren?" Fascinating! I am so glad I found this channel, because I really nerd out over this stuff!

[@crownedpillar3232]

I'm Indonesian. Apology accepted, Rob. used to say that the irregularities in English is more than the regulars

[@egds64]

👏👏👏👏👏 thanks for clarify this OUGH thing. It really helps a lot, specially me: a non native english speaker.

[@purplelikefire]

I would be so excited if you put out a video on the great vowel shift!!!

[@stampinwithcam]

Thank you for telling us where you're from. I've been (w)racking my brain trying to work out your accent. I had got you in the general Notts/Derby/Leics area. Quite pleased with myself. I used to be able to get accents to within about a 5-mile radius. Not so much any more, though. (Lived too long in the south of England)