The MOST Confusing English Mistake - Did you say CAN, CAN'T or ???? (+ Free PDF & Quiz)

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- Hello everyone and welcome back to "English with Lucy",

today, we are going to be looking at

some really confusing words.

Words that are pronounced in very similar ways,

words that if you mispronounce them,

you could say one of the worst swear words or curse words

in the English language.

There's a lot to talk about today, but don't worry,

I'm here to help you.

Before we get started,

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Let's get started with those confusing words.

Remember, as always, I have created a free PDF

that goes along with this lesson,

if you want to get that,

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Firstly, let's look at can,

and can't.

Now, these can be really confusing words,

not only in the British pronunciation,

the various forms of British pronunciation,

but in American English, it gets even more complicated,

so, we're going to talk about all of that today.

Firstly, let's talk about strong and weak forms.

So, with the word, can, we have can with the a sound,

but we also have cen with the Schwa sound

and this is a weak form.

Weak forms are syllable sounds that become

unstressed in connected speech

and they're often pronounced as the schwa, a, a.

Can, a,

cen, e.

Take a look at this sentence.

When I'm speaking naturally, I would say,

I can do what I can.

So, the first can is a weak form, cen,

and the last one, it's an important word so, it's can.

The first can is in its weak form

and the second one is stressed, so, it's in its strong form.

Cen, can, I can do what I can.

This works for other words as well, like do,

what do you want to do?

What do you want to do?

The first is unstressed the second is stressed.

Now, let's take a look at can versus can't

with RP pronunciation, my pronunciation.

A, can

a, can't.

A, is a really short and wide sound, a, a,

with can't, we have a different mouth shape

and it's a lot longer.

Aw,

Ah, aw, ah, (chuckles),

do I look silly?

Good, because that's how I meant to look

when I'm teaching pronunciation.

Can, can't, ah, aw.

Now, let's talk about a swear word,

I don't normally talk about swear words on my channel,

in American English, they refer to them as curse words, but

there is a vowel sound,

it is very similar to the aw sound,

if you use that in can't,

it makes a really bad word.

The vowel sound is, ah, ah,

so, we've got ah can't

and ah...

I'm not going to say it on this channel,

it's a really vulgar word,

but if you would like to search it and hear it for yourself,

then just replace the a and can't with a U

and I'm sure some robot dictionary will

tell you exactly what it sounds like.

Just be really mindful.

A, it's short and that's the bad version,

ah can't, that's longer and that's the fine version.

Now, something to notice with the pronunciation of can't

is that sometimes we don't release that final T,

instead of saying can't, we might say can.

I can't do it not, I can't do it.

I can do it, I can do it.

I can do it, I can't do it,

I can do it, I can't do it.

So, you can't always rely on hearing that T

to know if somebody is saying can or can't.

Now, this is where it gets complicated

because in American English,

they use a very similar vowel sound for can and can't

and they also avoid releasing that T at the end.

So, can in American English

and you must excuse my terrible accent,

is cen, cen,

but can't in American English is can't, can't.

Now, if they don't release that T,

then they sound very similar.

Cen, cen, cen, cen,

okay, brace yourself for this accent,

I can try, I can't try (laughs).

Now, I spoke to a couple of my friends from the U.S

and they assured me that they can hear the difference

because when they say can't, can't,

they make the vowel sound much more abrupt.

Can,

can't,

can,

can't (laughs).

So, I hope you now feel confident in pronouncing

can and can't

and avoid pronouncing that bad word,

unless you want to pronounce it, which is fine by me,

just not on my channel,

and I hope you now have a better idea

about the differences between

can and can't in American English.

Now, let's talk about some more pairs of words

that's even I find tricky and I really have to clarify

exactly what I'm saying,

especially when I'm talking on the phone.

This is the difference between teen and ty.

Fourteen, forty.

If I say I want 14 coffees, please,

they might say, is that 14 or 40?

So, don't worry if you mix them up,

native speakers get confused with it all the time.

It's actually very,

it's very annoying that those words are so similar,

but in general speech, there are differences between them.

Take a look at the phonetic transcriptions

of these two words, let's go on to 16 and 60.

We have sixteen

and sixty.

You can see that in the teens,

the stress is on the second syllable, but for the tys,

the stress is on the first syllable.

Sixteen, sixty,

fourteen, forty,

fifteen, fifty,

seventeen, seventy,

eighteen, eighty,

nineteen, ninety,

twenteen, twenty, just joking with that last one,

I hope you didn't write that down, if so,

rub it out.

So, if you want to be really clear,

especially when speaking over the phone

when you can't lip read or really hear too well,

make sure you really over accentuate

the stress of the word you're trying to use.

I said 60,

not 16 (laughs).

I'm going to do really quick quiz for you right now,

just to make sure you understand the differences,

write your answers in the comment section down below

and then I'll start correcting the first ones I see,

you've got to tell me whether I'm saying teen or ty, okay,

number one,

60 people came to the game last night,

I got my dog when I was 17,

I've been with my husband for 17 years,

and the last one, I'm only having 18 people at the wedding.

I'm only having 80 people at the wedding.

Right, that is it for today's lesson, I hope you enjoyed it

and I hope you learned something,

I hope I clarified some of your doubts.

Don't forget to check out Lingoda

with their language marathon,

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and remember that the first 50 of my students

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Don't forget to connect with me on social media,

I've got my Instagram @Lucy and my website,

Englishwithlucy.co.uk,

where I've got a really cool pronunciation tool,

you can test out pressing all of the phonemes and hearing me

say those phonemes and say words containing those phonemes,

it's great fun.

E.

No.

Air.

And I've also got my vlogging channel

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I will see you soon for another lesson (kissing).

There's a lot to talk about today.

With the full marathon, the one year marathon (mumbles).

Schwa sound and this is a weak form.

(tummy grumbling)

Sorry, that was my tummy (laughs).

Phoneme.

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