A collection of my-English-speaking-life-has-been-a-complete-lie moments.
I have come to learn that:
the word category is stressed on the first syllable (i.e., CAT-uh-GO-ree and not cuh-TEH-guh-REE);
the word cupboard is pronounced cubberd (i.e., not cup-board—obviously);
the word country is pronounced like cunt-tree (i.e., not count-tree);
the words Monday and Sunday are likewise pronounced muhn- and suhn-day (i.e., not mawn- and sawn-day);
the word fish has two perfectly valid plural forms, each used in different circumstances; i.e.:
the noun chicken is, in fact, countable (i.e., you cannot, in fact, say ‘two chicken’ – I had also been of the faulty belief that the plural is differentiated through a vowel change, namely -uhn becoming -in—which I will stress that is, as we in the field like to say, horseshit);
the word crooked has two pronunciations, much like ‘chicken’:
the word vigor is pronounced vigger (i.e., not VYE-gurr);
the word monk is pronounced munk (i.e., not like ‘bonk’);
the word iron is apparently—and this may well be deeply disturbing for fellow ESL'ers—seriously—pronounced like ‘I earn’!—and that
the word vegetable is pronounced vedge-tubble (i.e., not vedge-uh-tubble).