Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.
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Hi, it's Hadar.
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And you're watching the Accent's
Way, your way to finding clarity,
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confidence, and freedom in English.
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And today we're going to talk
about the vowel pair "bed - bad".
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Right?
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'eh' -'a'.
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As you can hear, these are two different
vowels, but they're often pronounced
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the same by non-native speakers.
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So first let's understand what the
differences are between the two vowels.
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So the first sound 'eh' is very
close to a neutral 'e' sound
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that exists in many languages.
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'eh', as in the words
"red", "bed", "head", "set".
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The other vowel is a more open
vowel, it's a front vowel.
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The tongue is pushing forward,
as in the word "cat", alright?
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So it's quite different: the quality
of the sound is different, the mouth
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is really open for this one - 'a'.
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As you can see, the sides of
the lips are pulling, right?
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The lips are pulling to
the sides a little bit.
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The tongue is pushing forward, the
front part of the tongue is flat.
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"happy", right?
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It's not the 'hepi', it's
not 'haapi' - "happy".
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I'd say that phonetically speaking, this
'a' sound is somewhere between the 'eh'
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and 'ah', the neutral 'eh' and 'ah'.
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Okay, so, "cat".
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Again, "happy", "that", "bad".
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Now, when we compare them, it's
really easy to see the shift
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between 'eh' and 'a', right?
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So you got to drop your jaw.
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Sometimes, we have a tendency of
speaking really quickly and not
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opening our mouths, and therefore the
'a' sound may come across as 'eh'.
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And then words like "bad",
"sat", and "laughed" may sound
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like "bed", "set", and "left".
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Alright?
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So, that's what we're practicing now,
this distinction: "left" - "laughed",
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"head" - "had", "set" - "sat",
"send" - "sand", "bed" - "bad".
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All right, great job.
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So, practice this distinction.
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Don't forget to drop your jaw,
pull the lips a little bit,
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make it a front forward sound.
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And that's it.
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If you have any questions or insights
about these two vowels, please
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share it with us below this video.
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If not, I will see you next
week in the next video.
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Bye.
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