this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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Some of the words in my native language I thought I knew were actually corrupted... like I thought it was pronounced one way, but its actually not... (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to c/casualconversation@piefed.social
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This probably make zero sense to English speakers here, but:

One of the one I realize is: 唔好 (don't/no)

Jyutping (romanization): (m⁴ hou²) and the way I heard/pronunced it morphed into one character like 母 (mou²)

即刻 (Now/Immediately) (zik¹ hak¹) Somehow became like (zik¹ kak¹)

There no character with pronounciation kak¹ not even ones with a different tone.

Also I think I also have some random Taishanese sounds/vocabulary mixed in...

Doesn't help the only people I speak this language to 99% of the time is with family, so if there is an error, I would never know about it.

Probably how pronounciations become different as a population disperses to different regions.

I wonder if I ever go to Hong Kong... if I could pretend to be a local and see if anyone would expose me xD.

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[–] MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I mean, that sounds like the same process that leads to contractions like couldn’t, shouldn’t etc.

I assume native speakers don’t think about it too much but it can be quite confusing for ESL learners when they first encounter it. And there’s a LOT of them (could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, etc.)

Alternatively, I’m wondering if this is for example how Australians came up with the word “maccas” to refer to McDonald’s. It wasn’t a pre-existing word, has no other meanings, and could technically also be spelled “mackas”, but somehow everyone seems to agree that it should be spelled with two c’s, despite that being a very odd (practically non-existing) combination in English.