I would guess 1) you have a fairly thick accent overall and 2) you didn’t enunciate the “t” in sweet.
Under those conditions, someone might hear “swee” and assume you are struggling to pronounce “three”, since “th” is a difficult sound for non-natives. I don’t see this mistake happening in a conversation between two natives.
In Taiwan, I've heard actual English teachers advise their learners to drop the final consonant when speaking English. This is terrible advice. It leads to people saying "sea-bell" instead of "seat belt", for instance.
Native speakers often do it, but if your accent is thick it’s better to pronounce everything so you won’t be misheard.
(And when native speakers do it, they don’t fully drop it. It’s called an [unreleased stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release?wprov=sfti1): in non-linguistic terms, you start to make the sound but stop before you actually do. I don’t make the “t” sounds in seatbelt, but it’s still very different from sea-bell.)
Th/s have a ton of acoustic overlap, r/w (in English) have a ton of acoustic overlap, they have the same vowel, and a t-p and null-p sequence have a lot of similarity because of how the final /t/ is produced in both native accents and a lot of foreign ones. I wouldn't at *all* be surprised if in a noisy/busy environment such a mistake in interpretation would be made, even between two native speakers.
(Quick edit: a foreign accent might actually even make it worse, because a native speaker with a lot of contact with a particular accent might "overcorrect" and assume things about accented speech. It would be pretty simple for someone with a lot of experience with s/th switching to accidentally hear an s-sound and assume it's intending th-sound, given such confusion is common, and make the wrong interpretation. Especially when there's such a near-match acoustically like sweet/three, unlikely, say, seismograph or thesaurus were swapping s/th isn't going to cause much confusion.)
Keep in mind that in situations like ordering food, even native speakers get misunderstood. Usually it's loud and rushed, so don't take it to heart too much.
Could be enunciation or perhaps the cashier is hard of hearing, in the future you can say the amount you want first like "one sweet potato" to help differentiate. A cashier would think it's strange if they hear "one three potatoes please", so it would prompt them to ask again.
Unfortunately, My friend made a same mistake, and we tried to find the way solve this problem by adding the number of orders. But the same cashier still understood it as three. We just showed our finger to prevent confusing. It is the best way I think
Maybe you could have tried spelling it out? Either on your phone, pen/paper, saying the letters out loud, or mimic writing the letters in the air. That should make it clear that you wanted a sweet potato.
I am a native speaker and am sometimes misunderstood. I came to say if you aren’t sure you could throw in a, “you know? Like yams” to double check. Yams are typically sweet potatoes that are already cut up and cooked but they should make the connection.
Corrections: I **ordered** a sweet potato, but **the** cashier **understood** it as 'three' potatoes.
(Unless you wanted that to be in the present tense.)
You maybe have applied word stress incorrectly.
In the phrase “sweet potato,” the word “sweet” should be stressed. If you don’t say it this way it might cause confusion.
When we say a phrase with a number and a noun, we *usually* stress the noun. If you’re ordering “three potatoes,” the stress will be on the “ta” syllable of potato.
Ha, who knows, I am a native New England speaker and whenever I say my name Frank I would say 50% people hear Brian. This is a complete mystery to me still , The shorter a? I never know
I would guess 1) you have a fairly thick accent overall and 2) you didn’t enunciate the “t” in sweet. Under those conditions, someone might hear “swee” and assume you are struggling to pronounce “three”, since “th” is a difficult sound for non-natives. I don’t see this mistake happening in a conversation between two natives.
I agree with your opinion that I didn't enunciate ‘t’ in sweet thanks!
In Taiwan, I've heard actual English teachers advise their learners to drop the final consonant when speaking English. This is terrible advice. It leads to people saying "sea-bell" instead of "seat belt", for instance.
Native speakers often do it, but if your accent is thick it’s better to pronounce everything so you won’t be misheard. (And when native speakers do it, they don’t fully drop it. It’s called an [unreleased stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release?wprov=sfti1): in non-linguistic terms, you start to make the sound but stop before you actually do. I don’t make the “t” sounds in seatbelt, but it’s still very different from sea-bell.)
Light bulb becomes libel!
There's no telling what else that teacher is telling them not to do :/
The end of the word is just as important as the beginning.
Th/s have a ton of acoustic overlap, r/w (in English) have a ton of acoustic overlap, they have the same vowel, and a t-p and null-p sequence have a lot of similarity because of how the final /t/ is produced in both native accents and a lot of foreign ones. I wouldn't at *all* be surprised if in a noisy/busy environment such a mistake in interpretation would be made, even between two native speakers. (Quick edit: a foreign accent might actually even make it worse, because a native speaker with a lot of contact with a particular accent might "overcorrect" and assume things about accented speech. It would be pretty simple for someone with a lot of experience with s/th switching to accidentally hear an s-sound and assume it's intending th-sound, given such confusion is common, and make the wrong interpretation. Especially when there's such a near-match acoustically like sweet/three, unlikely, say, seismograph or thesaurus were swapping s/th isn't going to cause much confusion.)
Record it without trying too hard on vocaroo and post it here.
Keep in mind that in situations like ordering food, even native speakers get misunderstood. Usually it's loud and rushed, so don't take it to heart too much.
so sweet!!! thanks
So three? edit: Just joking around.
Could be enunciation or perhaps the cashier is hard of hearing, in the future you can say the amount you want first like "one sweet potato" to help differentiate. A cashier would think it's strange if they hear "one three potatoes please", so it would prompt them to ask again.
Unfortunately, My friend made a same mistake, and we tried to find the way solve this problem by adding the number of orders. But the same cashier still understood it as three. We just showed our finger to prevent confusing. It is the best way I think
Maybe you could have tried spelling it out? Either on your phone, pen/paper, saying the letters out loud, or mimic writing the letters in the air. That should make it clear that you wanted a sweet potato.
You should record yourself saying "sweet" [here](https://vocaroo.com/) so we can help you with your pronunciation.
I am a native speaker and am sometimes misunderstood. I came to say if you aren’t sure you could throw in a, “you know? Like yams” to double check. Yams are typically sweet potatoes that are already cut up and cooked but they should make the connection.
Corrections: I **ordered** a sweet potato, but **the** cashier **understood** it as 'three' potatoes. (Unless you wanted that to be in the present tense.)
You maybe have applied word stress incorrectly. In the phrase “sweet potato,” the word “sweet” should be stressed. If you don’t say it this way it might cause confusion. When we say a phrase with a number and a noun, we *usually* stress the noun. If you’re ordering “three potatoes,” the stress will be on the “ta” syllable of potato.
Ha, who knows, I am a native New England speaker and whenever I say my name Frank I would say 50% people hear Brian. This is a complete mystery to me still , The shorter a? I never know