Saying EXCEPT, ACCEPT and EXPECT | American English pronunciation

Hello everyone, it's Hadar,

and this is the "Accent's Way",

your way to finding clarity, confidence

and freedom in English.

Today, I wanna talk about the three words

except, accept, and expect.

I know it may be complicated at first

but bear with me, I'll get you there.

Let's begin with the two words except and accept.

As you can hear, these are pretty similar.

That's because the ending is

absolutely the same, "-sept".

That's also the primary stress of the word.

So, the difference is in the beginning.

In the word except, you begin with an "i"

as in sit vowel sound, "i"

and then you move to a "k" sound, "ik", "ik",

the second syllable "sept"

an "s" sound, "e" and a "p" and a "t",

"sept", "sept".

In the word accept

you start with the "a" as in cat,

open mouth pull your lips to the sides a bit,

push your tongue forward, "a"

and then again a "k" sound,

accept,

except,

accept,

"ik",

"ak",

"ik",

"ak".

Pretty different right.

However, and there is always a however

hiding there somewhere.

When you speak really quickly

the beginning of the two words

may reduce to a "schwa"

and both words may sound the same,

accept and except all right?

Different meanings you, hear it in the context

but the pronunciation may be the same, except.

To our purposes let's make the distinction between the two

except and accept right?

That way you are not mistaken.

The difference between this word

and the word expect is a bit more

noticeable, all right?

Listen to the difference, except, expect

here the difference is in the second syllable.

So it begins the same, except,

the second syllable is "sept"

and in the word expect,

the second syllable is "spect"

so we have that "P" sound in the middle.

So you compare "sept" versus "spect", right?

That's pretty different.

"Cept" and then "s" close your lips for the "p",

"p", open it to the vowel 'spay' and end it with

"kt",

"kt",

a "k" sound and a "T"

"kt"

expect,

accept.

Alright so now let's look look at all three words.

Except, except for me,

accept,

accept your offer and expect,

I expect you to subscribe to my youtube channel.

Except, accept,

expect.

Alright I hope now it's a little clearer

and the fog is dissolved from these three words.

All right, thank you for watching,

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and that's it!

Thank you for watching and I will see you next week

in the next video.

Bye!