For example, a soft “e” is pronounced like an American soft “i” (and, conversely, “i” becomes “e”). “O” is most often a soft “u”, with soft “u” becoming “ah.” “Y” is a hard “e,” no matter how you do it. “R” is only pronounced at the beginning of any word, and succumbs to vowels when anywhere else. And if you wanna know how to pronounce a soft “a,” just forget it. It could be anything. And then, of course, there are exceptions to everything. Throw in a few regional words, and you’re just fucked.
For example:

• “I’m on my deck eating fish” = “Em on mee dick eatun fesh”
• “Kia ora, mate!” = “KYOR-uh, met!”
• “This sounds stupid.” = “Thess SEE-owns fect.”
• “Where is your restroom?” = “Whiz yah bog?” pronounced “bahg”
• “I can’t find it” = “Uh cunt.”
• “Yes” = “Uhh yeh, nah, yeh”

Keep practicing. Once you sound like a complete idiot with a speech impediment, you’re halfway there. Check out this video for more tips.

It is what it is.

* Hat tip to Chered for the idea

One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend, Diogenes?”

“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test. Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of GOODNESS. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“No, on the contrary…”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of USEFULNESS. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

This is why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high regard. It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.