Our Southern Language

[farce©]

I've never gotten the pen, pin thing right. Interchangeable to me.

Yep. Wonder and wander are pronounced the same and you need to rely on context to figure it out. Same with pen and pin, that's why we use adjectives to say which we mean, straight pin, safety pin, ink pen, pig pen. In some country-ass dialects, pin and pen are not only homophones, but are pronounced with two syllables, sounding a lot like the euphemism for urinating, like "pee'-un". As in "I need an ink pee'-un to sign this paper."

 

[donbosco]

In Spanish the sounds of 'I' and 'E' are essentially reversed -- since I've learned Spanish I often have problems. I have a student named Teila...and I look at her name and freeze -- get the pronunciation wrong about half the time.