It still makes sense to me as an English speaker. Or maybe just being American and hearing words pronounced wildly different all the time, based on where the speaker is from.
To-may-to, to-mah-to. 🤷♂️
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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There are a ton of English words that arose from "mispronounciations" exactly like this.
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.
Assimilation. It is a normal thing, it helps pronounce words with subsequent consonants easier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_(phonology)
For example, I'd write "tudta" (hungarian: he knew) but pronounce it "tutta".
I knew someone who was born in the states but lived with Korean family and extended family. They consider Korean to be their mother tongue, but when they visited Korea everyone said they had an American accent.
I studied Mandarin for a few years, and while I can't speak it (no one to practice with, lol) I can sometimes pick out accents. I mean, I can tell when Australian is speaking Mandarin. So I'm sure it's the same with an American accent. There's nothing wrong with it, even in the states people can tell when you were raised in a different part of the country because of pronunciation or other language quirks.
Edit: this is a meme but it is one of my favorite examples of pronunciation differences
(no one to practice with, lol)
Wanna voice call? I speak Mandarin... well... sort of... Went to school in China up to the 2nd grade level... and I listened to Chinese tv drama for like a few years after being in the US, so I have a basic grasp on the language.
Actually who am I kidding... I have too much anxiety and voice shy to talk to strangers... flashback to phone calls to trying to find treatment for depression
I actually wanna use those language exchange apps and maybe like talk to random Chinese Diaspora around the world, but too scared, too socially awkward, xD
I love the enthusiasm! I am also not a fan of phone calls, and by now it has been too many years since I practiced. I should get back into it though. My local university has a Chinese club, I've been tempted to drop in a few times lol
I found some paper on ongoing phonetic variations in HK Cantonese, and I couldn't find anything similar to what you're doing. So it's possible people would notice you aren't a local. But if I had to guess they'd have a hard time pointing where you're from, because the sound changes you're doing (assimilation) are really common across languages, so they're bound to pop up over and over.
It's possible the Taishanese vocab gives you away, though.
Just to be sure it's assimilation: how would you pronounce ⟨一刻⟩ (jat¹ hak¹)? I'm guessing something like (jat¹ tak¹**), is this accurate? If yes, the underlying "rule" seems to be "replace [h] with a copy of the preceding consonant; if this results in a sequence of two nasals, simplify it".
No I didn't used to read written cantonese a lot, so I only knew the sounds, so I assumed it was like probably some dialect thing and I didn't realize the zik¹ kak¹, that the kak¹ is supposed to be 刻, so I thought its a unique word to cantonese. So then when I tried typing zik kak on Jyutping Keyboard, nothing seemed correct, then I realized the closest thing is 刻, but I only knew the mandarin pronunciation as in 立刻, so I had to look up the dictionary for the corect Jyutping romanization.
Also I never heard 一刻 IRL, except like maybe HK TV shows, but its rarely heard so I kinda forgot it.
When I say 唔好 fast and slurs it a bit the m does get attached to the 2nd word and sounding like 唔母 lol