(来源：英语杂志 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

Can You Pronounce All These Words Correctly? If you can, you speak English better than 90 percent of the world's English speakers。　　

如果你能念出这首诗！那你可以自豪地说，我的英语比世界上90%的人说得好！
　　After trying these verses a Frenchman said that he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud。
　　听说，有一位尝试过的法国人表示：我宁愿做六个月的苦力也不要大声念出六行诗……
　　真的有这么难么？大家快来试试看！
　　The Chaos
　　By G. Nolst Trenite, aka Charivarius (1870-1946)
　　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 mould 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 and home。
　　Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
　　Neither does devour with clangour。
　　Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
　　Font, front, 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, foliage, 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。
　　Feoffer 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, moustache, 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, give, verging,
　　Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging。
　　Ear, but earn and wear and tear
　　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,