Test of pronunciation

As soon as you learn to read the next poem correctly, your English will be better than 90% of native English speakers.
It is necessary to read out loud, then you will understand how difficult it is :)

Immediately I warn you - this is not upper intermediate.

English is tough stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
')


Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written,)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt show, poem, and toe
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far:

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind.
Scene. Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is it a mold like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some home
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, wont, want, grand and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, follage, mirage and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull and George ate late.
Scenic Arabic Pacific
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, mustache, eleven.
We say hallowed but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise.
Chalice. but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area.

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion,
Sally with ally, yea, ye.
Eye, i, ay, aye, whey and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass -
Large, but target, gin and give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear,
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right but so is even
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp and cork and work.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight.
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhyme with enough,
Thoughts, throuh, plow, or dough, or cough?
Hjccough has the sound of cup
My advice is to give it up !!!

“The Chaos”, GJ Nolst Trènitè (1870-1946).