Poem about how difficult the English language is
Prepare to have your brain doing backflips – this poem will make you incredibly grateful to be a native English speaker! In 1922, Dutch poet Gerard Nolst Trenité wrote this poem (aptly titled “The Chaos”) to highlight just how difficult English is to learn, and we have to say, it’s a real tongue twister.
Want to really test yourself? Try reading just a few verses of the poem aloud without making a mistake.
Dearest Creature in creation
Study English pronunciation
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse corps horse and worse
…
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
…
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
…
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
…
Finally which rhymes with enough
Though through plough or dough or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!
How did you do? Watch the video above to hear how it’s supposed to be done and tell us in the comments below, could you read it without stumbling?
Related links:
What your book organisation reveals about your personality
What I learnt after reading over 500 self-help books
12 hilariously honest alternate titles for books