Poema de pronunciación

Como bien lo dijo Aurelio en los comentarios de la entrada pasada, las incertidumbres sobre cómo se pronuncia lo escrito, o cómo se escribe lo dicho, son mucho mayores en otros idiomas. En inglés, es un verdadero quilombo (ya me gustó la palabra --deberíamos adoptarla en México).

Para muestra, un botón. Aquí les pongo un poema que un amigo acaba de publicar en su blog justo esta semana. No se sabe bien quién es el autor del poema, pero según mi pesquisa se le ha atribuido a George Bernard Shaw y más comúnmente a un tal TSW. Abajo les pongo el audio para que lo escuchen a la vez que lo leen.

Pronunciation Poem

I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
to learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
that looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead -- it's said like bed not bead --
and for goodness' sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)

A moth is not the moth in mother,
nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
just look them up -- and goose and choose,
and cork and work and card and ward,
and font and front and word and sword,
and do and go and thwart and cart --
come, come I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive.
I'd mastered it when I was five.

Fuente del audio: Forgotten Classics