Hi Failbob!

Wow, we can’t really explain to you why ‘ch’ is pronounced with a ‘k’ sound in some words! You’ll have to ask a linguist about that. And let us know the answer when you get it!

As for other words that have a ‘k’ sound for ‘ch’, here’s a few:

Christmas
Epoch
Character
Architect

We’re sure you can think of more. They’re everywhere, Failbob!

Hey Viridian!

Have you met Failbob? You guys should meet. We think you’d have very meaningful conversations.

Again we can’t explain to you why ‘gh’ has different pronunciations. Ask a linguist!

But you missed out one more different pronunciation of ‘gh’, Viridian. That can be found in words like ‘ghost’ and ‘ghoul’.

Hi Mic Lim!

‘Mandarin’ and ‘Chinese’ can share the meaning when they’re referring to the spoken language!

‘Mandarin’ does not mean ‘Chinese’ in the sense of being a person of Chinese race or a person from China.

So you can say ‘do you speak Chinese?’ and ‘are you a Chinese?’

But in this context, you can’t say ‘are you a Mandarin?’

You should take note that ‘Mandarin’ can also refer to a type of plant or a powerful government official or a member of a powerful group. So ‘are you a mandarin?’ can be correct in the right contexts!