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Q: which words in english are not pronounced the way they are supposed?
Are you asking from the point of view of a Chinese person. The biggest difficulty they have is any word with "V" in it. Most cant make that sound and pronounce it as "W". They also seem to add the "E" sound at the end of many words as another syllable when either it is part of the last syllable or does not exist at all. eg Massage is pronounced "mass- arge" not "mass-r-gee.
If your refering to which words are not pronounced the way they are supposed to be in general, you just have to go to New Zealand where they pretty much get every word there is wrong, by systematically swapping their vowel sounds around. 
Rongyu:
I disagree because the New Zealand accent is Beau-ti-ful. Jus coz we cun torque frm th back've uhr throats an not move uhr lips...
fish79:
Wow ! I have been to parts of the USA and UK were they Can’t speak English at all!!!!!!
I disagree with Woody. I think the major pronunciation problem is the 'TH' sound. Three, Through, clothes (very difficult for Chinese people. Usually pronounced 'closes'), etc with the air pushed between the tongue and the upper teeth and the vibrating 'TH' not unlike the 'V' compared to the 'F', the, this, those, etc. The 'TH' is uncomfortable for them as they have no concept of any similar sounds in their own language. It has to be practiced time and time again, unfortunately only the most willing of the students will ever get close and then they lose it again sharing English with other Chinese people throughout their life.
If you are looking for words that are misleadingly written and pronounced differently then there are loads and for different reasons such as historical changes, foreign influences, etc.
English is often called an "agglomerative" language, which means it has absorbed words from many different languages. Those words often kept the spelling of their original language, but have come to be pronounced differently (often because English speakers were unaware of the correct pronunciation after a word's introduction). Over time, although the spelling of a word remained the same, subtle changes in pronunciation meant that the written word lost much of its resemblance to the spoken word.
Words like "tough" and "rough", for example, have Germanic roots, where the "gh" had a more guttural sound that is no longer heard in spoken English.
Why today choose and lose and even whose perfectly rhyme but dose and moose do not, and why we pronounce close (meaning near) differently from close (meaning to shut).
English pronunciation is quirky and peculiar in ways that defy description, much less understanding.
Q. How do you spell fish?
A. Ghoti! Just use the gh from rough, the o from women, and the ti from action (or ration or station or — well, you get the idea).
There is also often an 'E' at the end of a lot of words in English. This 'E' is rarely pronounced and can be quite confusing for non native English speakers. I like to think it acts as an accent that languages like Spanish among others use. It's main function being to change the vocal that comes beforehand like:
quit - quite ('i' change)
sit - site
trip - tripe
whit - white
woody:
nice post. Agree with the th sound. I can understand the difficulty because it is really hard to form some of the sounds that I require in my attempts to learn mandarin.
HugAPanda:
Let me add the sites for the cites for you: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_English_words_pronounced_differently_than_they_are_written http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/14307/why-are-the-words-lose-and-choose-written-differently-and-pronounced-the-same
I would also like to add, that as an English speaking person it is quite easy to understand all the different pronounciations of English words, even when it is only remotely close, by using context to asist your comprehension. With my mandarin it apears to me that unless I say the word very close to it's tonal correctness, others have no idea what I am saying. It is very frustrating for me. I usually pick things quite quickly but to be honest I feel all at sea in my quest to learn Chinese.
steve0sha:
agree with that my chinese girlfriend teaches me a word one day- which is rare as she cant be asked- and i say it again another day has she has no idea what im saying untill i translate it and then she says well done. She is a lazy teacher maybe did not say it right in first place..
English is one of the hardest languages to learn because of all the nuances of the same or same-sounding words in pronunciations, meanings and different spellings of many words. Native English speakers learn it very young, of course, but trying to teach ESL, especially to adults, is difficult because it is confusing for the learner to learn the differences, let alone the grammar to use each word correctly.
kchur:
ahahahahhaha. Yeah, other languages are totally lacking in nuance, and none have that many homophones and near-homophones, certainly not Chinese. Basically, there's just English and monkey-talk. Bloody white man's burden pip pip!
kchur:
There's a reason English is current lingua franca. Europeans find it way way easier than French, which it supplanted, and miles easier than Latin and Greek. Asians find it easier than Chinese (once most educated Koreans, Japanese, or Vietnamese could read and write Classical Chinese perfectly), or Sanskrit, which it has practically eliminated on an international stage.
HugAPanda:
Ok, Homer Simpson... I said ONE of the hardest. I didn't say hardest you feeble-minded twit. Chinese is very hard, so is Latin and Japanese. I like my glass half full. If I carried around as much negativity and disdain as you, I'd look for a bridge to jump from. Need a map?
GoldenBoy:
English isn't one of the hardest languages. You talk from your own closed point of view. Any language is difficult if you can not find similarities between the known and unknown. Since people who speak different languages have a different concept or idea of language then different languages are easier or more difficult to learn and these languages are different for different nations.
Most difficulty Chinese people face, when they have to say a word containing "N" in it. They mostly replace "N" with "L". They say "Lame" instead of "Name". They say "Loul" instead of "Noun".
To learn to speak English correctly is very difficult, but to learn how to communicate and write basically is not that hard, because as i previously said and others have agreed, even if you cant pronounce the word it is understood. If you spell it incorrectly it can be still understood and as far as basic comunication goes grammar is over rated and is mostly for accademic reasons anyway.You can learn the 26 letters very easily and once you have learned the sounds of each you can get by with basic reading and writing by just sounding things out. Sure you will have spelling mistakes and pronounce things wrong but in most cases what you do will be understood. Chinese on the other hand requires perfect tonal pronounciation, has unlimited characters to learn to read or write etc.
usually = urually, panda = pandar, umbrella = umbreallar, vase = wase, thanks = sanks and a lot more. Chinese has reflected R accent at the end of each word if you noticed.
I paid some of my way thru college working partime at Berlitz School of Languages, and also did some translation services for Federal Court in cases were the accused was not fluent in English.
At Berlitz I learned that vocal cords do harden at around 11 or 12 years of age. After that, there is no way to learn a new language and speak it as a native. Your vocal cords will not be able to reproduce some of the new sounds, they claimed. Is it true ?. I have no idea, but I am inclined to do so, even if I did managed once to make a Chinese give me the correct sound for an "R" after many days of trials and practice. But I will never do it again.
kchur:
No, your vocal chords are only responsible for the voice itself: the difference between a 't' and a 'd' sound, for example. Everything else comes from your lungs, nasal passages, jaw, and (especially) tongue and lips.The larynx is responsible for tone in Chinese, and pitch on non-tonal languages, but vocal chords are only part of the larynx: not the actual part that makes a difference to tone. Linguists have noticed that the ability to pronounce a new language seems to trail off around seven, but they don't know why and suspect it's neurological. Likewise, they've noticed that any language other than your mother language is processed in a different part of your brain. But age has nothing to do with that: a child in a bilingual household will show the same neurological pattern with one language but not the other, even if the child speaks both languages perfectly.
freakboy:
At Berlitz I learned that vocal cords do harden at around 11 or 12 years of age. After that, there is no way to learn a new language and speak it as a native. That is the biggest phrase of crap I have heard in a long time. And as for your reference of the letter "R" it has more to do with the tongue then the vocal cords. Many Chinese words use the tongue different and have a hard time using it the English way so they cannot say "R,N,L" which are all tongue related. I really wonder about the quality of the ESL teacher here in this country.
