Truth…hah! I still have words I have to look up on the sly on the internet and click one of those definition services that will pronounce the word for you so I don’t sound completely wrong.
I pronounced epitome epi-tome for the longest time. Now as I read, I pop onto Google when I encounter something I’m unfamiliar with. And I’m 36, my job has me fairly familiar with the English language, but I swear some writers discover a word and they’re like “can’t wait to use this two or three times in the next couple chapters.”
It’s that and character/place names, but character names are dangerous lookups, spoiled a plot in WoT looking up how to pronounce Moraine. And the worst part is her name’s pretty obvious, but I fucking looked it up anyway. I thought Hermione was obvious as a kid, but that’s probably because I transposed the I and O, now that I think about it.
I was teasing my significant other about her epi-tome but then she caught me with indictment so we’re back on equal footing.
The one that I mispronounced for awhile was hyperbole. I thought it was pronounced like “hyper bowl.”
So apparently for the latter you can just claim to be using the american pronunciation https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/penchant
As someone who has learned the English language primarily by reading thousands of books, I wholeheartedly agree. On the other hand, English pronounciation sucks big time.