During World War II, if you wanted to know if someone was a Nazi spy, you’d simply ask them what bushy-tailed animal buries its nuts in the yard. If they could pronounce the word “squirrel,” they were good to go. If they contorted their faces and said “sqewkjhguihgcfghkd,” you knew you had a spy. (I might be making that up). Anyway, here we have ten really hot Germans (are there any other kind?) trying and adorably failing to say the word “squirrel.” It’s a weird word, of course. As Slate points out: “It starts with a pretty intense consonant cluster (which isn’t a particular problem for Germans) and segues right into a syllabic r—the hardest English sound—and then immediately fades to the mushy ‘dark l.’ I mean, English speakers don’t even really know how they say it. Is it one or two syllables? Is there really an r in there? Get even the most eloquent native speaker thinking about it too much, and there’s no way they won’t start to fumble it.”
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