10 English Words You're Probably Mispronouncing!

- Hello, lovely students,

and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today, we're going to talk about pronunciation,

because there are quite a few words

that you might be mispronouncing.

Don't worry,

it's very common.

These are very common words,

they're very commonly mispronounced.

We'll go through them all today,

and I'll teach you how to pronounce them correctly,

according to my accent,

British English,

Received Pronunciation.

This is the pronunciation that you'll find

in most dictionaries.

As always,

there is a free PDF and quiz (image pops)

that goes with this lesson,

it's free to download.

If you'd like to have your copy sent to you,

then just click on the link

in the description box,

you enter your name and your email address,

you sign up to my mailing list,

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directly in your inbox.

After that, you're in the club.

Every week, you will receive my free lesson PDFs.

It's a free service and you can unsubscribe

at any time. (tab chimes)

Right, let's get started with the video.

We'll start with the first word,

or should I say words?

And I may have given you a little clue there,

actually.

We're going to talk about a trio of words,

three words that are commonly mispronounced

by learners of English.

They are these words here.

The issue with these words

is the vowel sound.

Lots of people struggle with the vowel sound

in these words.

It should be, uh,

uh,

word,

world,

work.

With this vowel sound,

uh, I want you to imagine

that you are disgusted by something,

urgh,

urgh,

uh.

World,

work,

word.

I'm enjoying these trios.

Let's move on to another one.

Number two,

these words,

these three words.

How would you pronounce them?

Again, it's the vowel sound

that really confuses students,

they find it very hard to produce.

You should say would,

should, and could.

Would is really the word

that confuses students most,

because that wuh sound

before the uh,

would, it's quite hard to do.

You need to go, ooh,

uh,

would,

would.

The vowel sound is uh,

uh,

would.

It's the same as good,

would, should, could.

Focus on making that round lip shape,

uh, uh, would, should, could.

Let's move on to number three.

I actually had this for dinner tonight.

It should be pronounced salmon,

salmon,

but some people say sal-mon,

sal-mon, they pronounce the L,

you will even hear native speakers doing this.

Officially, it should be salmon.

And there are lots of words like this,

with a silent L,

an L that's included in the spelling,

but not included in the pronunciation.

Another big one is this word,

almond,

almond, you will hear people saying el-mond

or al-mond.

Officially, it should be almond,

almond.

This word also falls into that category,

half, not half

or helf,

half.

Talk and walk

also follow this same trend.

You could even say the same

for would, should and could,

the L in those words is silent.

Now, we're going to move on

to a group of words

that are really commonly mispronounced,

mainly because people give them an extra syllable.

In British English, we love cutting syllables

out of words.

Take a look at this first one.

Some people say vegetable,

it should be vegetable,

vegetable.

Ve-ge-at-ble?

No,

vegetable.

Number five is very similar.

Take a look at this word.

I hear people saying chocolate

or choco-late,

It should be chocolate,

two syllables.

We drop that middle syllable,

not choco-late or choco-lat,

it's chocolate,

chocolate.

Another one, really common,

this word, number six,

again, we drop that syllable.

I hear lots of people saying comfort-able

or comfortable,

it should be comfortable,

comfortable, three syllables,

comfortable.

Number seven might also surprise you.

You might have been accidentally mispronouncing this.

It is this one, a fabulous place,

if you haven't explored your local mm,

then please do,

why pay? (Lucy chuckles)

It looks like you should pronounce it,

library or library,

but it is just library,

library, two syllables.

It's actually easier,

library,

- brary

That's a horrible,

horrible pair of sounds to say,

re, re, re, re,

library,

library,

library.

Number eight, this one.

This one really confuses a lot of my students,

is this.

It's a lovely, lovely thing,

just a really horrible word.

When you read it, you want to say

jewellery,

but it should be jewellery.

So, look at the word, jewel,

jewel,

jewellery,

jewellery.

You will hear British people say jewellery,

jewellery as well.

That brings us to number nine.

We're back to a confusing vowel sound,

or a diphthong in this case,

one that is hard to produce.

It features in this word here.

I wonder if you've ever struggled with it before.

I hear people saying parrents,

or perrents,

it should be parents,

parents.

You might be thinking, "What?

"The eh sound isn't hard at all."

That's probably because your language is accustomed

to pronouncing this sound.

In certain languages,

in certain mother tongues,

you'd never come across a sound like that,

and it can be really hard to produce.

I'm thinking Spanish, for example.

When you go, eh,

parents,

it should be, eh,

uh,

eh, uh,

parents.

Now, we can make this easier for you.

Just take the eh sound and extend it.

Eh, eeh,

eh, eeh, I'm dropping the pitch slightly,

eh, eeh,

parents.

This sound features in loads of words,

hair, share,

care, affair.

I know lots of you follow me,

because you have the goal

of speaking like a native,

lots of you just want to have a clear accent,

you want to be understood

without losing your accent.

I would advise everyone to really work on this sound,

practise in the mirror,

repeat after me.

It will really help you be understood,

and for those who want to speak like a native,

you do have to master this sound to do that.

One last word, it's this word.

People always like to add an extra syllable,

it's two syllables,

biz, with eh,

nus,

schwa, business.

I hear people saying bus-i-ness,

bus-i-ness, business.

And that brings us to the end

of our pronunciation video.

I've got a fantastic PDF (text pops)

with loads of extra information on it,

and a quiz, I know you love a quiz,

you can test your pronunciation there.

If you'd like to download that,

just click on the link in the description box,

you enter your name and email address,

you sign up to my mailing list,

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Lucy.

And, this might be interesting for you,

I also have my vlogging channel,

where I document our lives here

in the English countryside,

but, importantly,

every single vlog is fully subtitled,

so you can use it to acquire new vocabulary,

and improve your pronunciation skills,

and your listening skills.

It's quite a good resource.

I will see you soon for another lesson.

Mwah.

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