Re-Learning English Pronunciation

I’ve heard it said that when French people learn English, they need to work hard at re-learning how to pronounce their own language since so many words used in English originally came from French. Similarly, Japanese use many English words in their daily lives, but the pronunciation is far from what most of us might expect, making it necessary for foreigners to get comfortable with katakana English. The simple English word “weekend” becomes a bizarre-sounding oo-EE-ku-EHN-doh in Japanese, and if you want people to understand you you have to get used to saying it this way. Another word that’s quite hard to get down is “wind orchestra” (oo-EEN-doh OH-keh-su-to-ra). Often when English words are imported into Japanese they’re changed slightly, which can sound weird in English speakers for a while. The word “Google” comes through in Japanese as “goggle” (as in what you swim with), and Japanese web users universally perceive the double “o” in Google as a pair of eyes looking through goggles.

It can be odd to get used to English pronunciation that feels “wrong” at first.