Same here. I grew up in time and place where english was almost non existent for normal people. Then computers came, but they were gray bricks with no sound output outside PC speaker “beep beep”. But the language was there already. For many years english was just written form with zero pronounciation for me. And once we finally got teacher that actually could speak (and who wasn’t one lecture ahead of us) it was almost too late. That’s why I uderstand quite well, especially written text, but once I have to speak myself… people think I came from stone age or something.
see-EN instead of SY-en
I pronounced it like cayenne pepper until someone corrected me. But I learn a lot of words from reading them before hearing them. HEJeeMOHnee.
Related, Celtics (soft C) are a basketball team, Celts are a ethnic demographic and a Selt is an ancient kind of knife.
Same here. I grew up in time and place where english was almost non existent for normal people. Then computers came, but they were gray bricks with no sound output outside PC speaker “beep beep”. But the language was there already. For many years english was just written form with zero pronounciation for me. And once we finally got teacher that actually could speak (and who wasn’t one lecture ahead of us) it was almost too late. That’s why I uderstand quite well, especially written text, but once I have to speak myself… people think I came from stone age or something.
I also pronounced cyan like cayenne as a teen….
Except I was also cocky enough to think I was right and found out when I “corrected“ a classmate who was pronouncing it “wrong”.