500. English spelling is confusing. Here's proof (native speaker fails!)

Have you seen that trend going around on social media where native speakers share a word they mispronounced once… and it still haunts them years later? Today we're turning those viral confessions into a pronunciation lesson 🙈 You'll learn how to pronounce Hepatitis, chihuahua, paradigm, fatigue, stomachaches, Yosemite, Arkansas, Connecticut, chaos, elbow, and manslaughter. I'll explain where the primary stress goes, why some letters are silent, how American pronunciation changes certain sounds, why English spelling can be so confusing and why even native speakers get it wrong! Here's the truth: English is not a phonetic language. You cannot always guess the pronunciation from the spelling. That is exactly why mispronunciations happen. And not just to non-native speakers. If you want more lessons on pronunciation, fluency, and building confidence in English, make sure to

You can listen to 500. English spelling is confusing. Here's proof (native speaker fails!) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

500. English spelling is confusing. Here's proof (native speaker fails!) is an episode from The InFluency Podcast by Hadar Shemesh.

This episode is 04:59 long.

This episode was published on Feb 17, 2026.

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