最难读的20个英文单词-英语点津

With nine letter and four syllables, the tongue-twisting "phenomenon" has been named as the most mispronounced word in the English language.由九个字母和四个音节组成的，发音饶舌的“现象”一词成为英语里面最难念的单词。

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.这个词在调查中之所以名列榜首，是因为phenomenon中的"m"和"n"一个连一个，让你的嘴皮子倒腾不过来。

"Anaesthetist" came second because of quickly moving between the TH to the letters T at the end.“麻醉师”一词的发音排名第二，难就难在"th"和"t"的音连接得太紧。

In third place was "remuneration", which is often mispronounced as "renumeration".“报酬”位居第三。这个词难在它经常被误读为"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.参与调查的3000人中，几乎一半的受访者表示他们经常会纠正别人错误的发音，四分之一的受访者说，发音错误容易给人知识水平不高的印象。

But suprisingly in the list of admissions, Britons admitted that February was the 12th hardest word to spit out.令人惊奇的是，英国人把“二月”一词推上榜单，位列最难发音的第十二位。

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."语音通信公司Spinvox进行了这项调查。该公司的发言人说：“Phenomenon这个字很难念是因为这个词本身的结构。”

"There are some real tongue-twisters in the list and it's understandable how many people can get confused when pronouncing certain words. "“这次的列表中有一些单词确实很饶舌，所以许多人在念这些单词时感觉困难是可以理解的。”

"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."“某些人觉得好念的单词对其他人来说却可能并不好念，就像一些人觉得“二月”之类的基本单词很难念。”

The company found that other difficult words to feature in the poll include "regularly" at 11, "particularly" at 13 and "prejudice" at 17.该公司发现的其他一些引人注目的难读的上榜单词包括位列11的“有规律地”、位列13的“尤其”和位列17的“偏见”。

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.超过三分之一的受访者表示，为了不犯傻，他们会避免使用自己念不清楚的单词。

（英语点津Jennifer编辑）