"Το φθινόπωρο."

Translation: The fall.

[Gerardd88]

Really? φθ? Feels kind of funny :D I've never seen a combination of these sounds before.

[mizinamo]

Never heard of diphthongs or diphtheria? There's also phthisis though that's a medical term and not all that common (I'm not even sure what it means).

Fun fact: diphthong doesn't come from diph + thong but from di + phthong. (φθόγγος is a speech sound.)

[Gerardd88]

I forgot about diphthong. Still, this combination is quite funny to me. Maybe because here in Poland 90% of people (who sadly don't care about any phonetics at all) can't pronounce /θ/. So "thank you = fank you", "thought = fought" "thief = fief/tief" etc. I imagine how they'd pronounce all those φθινόπωρα :)

[EdGar983049]

That depends on the language. If TH doesn't exist in a certain language, then it's replaced by the closest consonant which varies. In Russian they'd say S, while you mentioned in Polish it's F. In Bulgarian, it's T.

[Pawel73418]

Many years ago there was a funny advertisement: "we're sinking, we're sinking". German coast guard: "what are you sinking about?" ;)

[Grekus95]

Yeah, Polish people are having a big problem with the sound of /θ/ and /δ/.
Przy okazji pozdrawiam z deszczowej Anglii.

[Phil682961]

There's a chemical called phenolphthalein, which our high school chemistry teacher insisted on making us pronounce with the proper "phth" consonant cluster - that was useful!

[D_..]

You haven't seen φθηνό (cheap) yet? :)

[JohannesRoehl]

it was a rule in ancient greek that ph always goes with th, not with t and similarly for ch and th. The sounds were pronounced differently (closer to the main sound followed by an h) so it made sense in that context

[Tomvince]

I think "autumn" without the article should be accepted as correct.

[Sotirios]

It seems to be accepted now :)

[JacobPast177]

My favorite combination is 'σθ'. Beautiful words like σθένος, αίσθηση, and μισθός. :-)

[G.Georgopoulos]

Mισθός might be everyone's favorite word, hahahahaha xD

[YPSILONZ]

Human pronunciation:
https://forvo.com/phrase/το_φθινόπωρο/

[QueenGizzard]

Is this word a combination of 2 words?
(I always hope I can find a smart solution to memorize these odd words...! :"P )

[YPSILONZ]

φθινόπωρο:
φθίνω (=λιγοστεύω, diminish) + οπώρα (=φρούτο, fruit)

Not sure if it helps remembering though. Φθίνω is a word used today as well, οπώρα not anymore.

[mizinamo]

You'll still see οπωροπωλείο, though, at least on shop signs.

[QueenGizzard]

Well, at least the "fruit reduction" has some sense...! :"P
Thank you very much! <3