Now I feel more disappointed than anything. I always pronounced them differently. Especially “there”.
Wat has Inglish cam two…
1 Like
Currently I am watching shirokuma cafe and after reading the title of this thread I remembered that almost every episode the penguin says something and the bear understand a very similar word.
Interesting as a way of learning the language.
I really recommend this anime!
4 Likes
If only that were true, then English speakers might be able to learn to distinguish them in writing.
7 Likes
It’s still hard for me to imagine how to do this without reaching for dialectal versions like thur (which is a spelling to mimic a certain way of saying “there”).
That’s not what you were doing, right >_>
1 Like
Absolutely not. But a couple of things to consider (since this is already a full-on tangent to the actual topic of the thread…):
-
I’m not a native English speaker (duh)
-
I learned a mixture of British and American English as a kid
-
My mother tongue is a Slavic language so I might’ve carried over some pronunciation guffs from it
Also, I just practised “their”, “they’re” and “there” and:
-
I pronounce “there” as a combination of “der” and “thur”
-
“their” is softer so you can definitely hear the “i” in there
-
I do enunciate “they’re” quite strongly
1 Like
A significant part of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is concerned with the fact that people are constantly misunderstanding each other because they keep using language that they think has a clearly defined meaning but is actually not clear at all and will be interpreted completely differently than intended. So you’re not alone. 
7 Likes
popularity
cat’s
nailed it.
not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but aside from these two being so different they can almost always be understood from context, it’s also common to use 人工的 (じんこうてき) for ‘artificial’, which makes it much more clear (source: Japanese wife). Hope that helps 
4 Likes
On a similar note, 私立 and 市立 are both read as しりつ but are antonyms, and so would be used in the same contexts as each other. To avoid ambiguity when speaking, then, sometimes the kun’yomi reading is used for the first kanji instead - わたくしりつ and いちりつ.
9 Likes
This really is a tangent. I am a native English speaker, and I pronounce their, they’re, and there the same way. Kind of like (TH-air). That could just be where I’m from though…this is interesting, I’ve never really thought about it.
1 Like