English Pronunciation - 4 Common Mistakes

Hi there, my name is Rani and I'm here to teach you more English pronunciation.

Armed with two markers and a voice, I'm here to teach you very easily confused, hard to

say, hard to tell the difference between words in our lovely English language.

Let's start with probably the most easily confused one or two.

This is the word walk and work.

I know that when you want to say walk, you know what you're saying and you're actually

moving your two feet and walking.

Work is something that we all have to do to make a little bit of money in this world.

So let's look at how we pronounce it and I want you to pay special attention to my mouth,

the shape that my mouth takes when I'm actually saying these words.

The first one is walk.

When I say this word, my mouth opens wide and it's like going wah.

So you can practice wah, wah, and I just put the ending on walk.

I don't even say the L. The L's gone.

So it's wa-k.

So try it, wa-k, good.

The next one is the word work.

If you look at this, it should be wa-rk.

We don't say it like this.

Do you know the word were?

I was, he was, she was, they were.

We say this word in the middle of this one.

This is how we pronounce this word, work.

So it sounds like this.

If I was to spell it, it's were with a k on the end.

Easy, easy, work.

Try this.

When you say this word, your mouth opens widely, wa-k, and this one is work.

With this one, you're going to make a little smiley face.

And this one, your mouth is open wide, so you have wa-k, work.

To practice this, you can say I walk to work.

If you can get those two words in the same sentence and it sounds correct, you've done

it.

Okay, the next one is, let's do up here, main and pain.

These words with the ai sound, it's not like this a, this is a, it's a longer a.

It's an a and an i together.

It sounds like the Canadian saying, a, take off a.

So this is pain, pain.

This is main.

If you want to practice being Canadian, you can say a, and this will help you pronounce

the ai sound.

Once again, this is pain and main.

What other words do you know with the ai sound in it?

One of them we use to describe weather.

Does anyone know what it is?

Rain.

This is the ra-ai-n, rain.

So you can try these three together, main, rain, and pain.

I have been requested to do a lesson with the difference between this word and this

word.

The problem with this word is the e pronunciation in English.

We do not pronounce it like an i.

If you have problems with that, please look on www.engvid.com and you can see the difference

with pronunciation between the letter e and i in English.

So if we take this, we have to say pen.

This is pain and pen.

This word is main and men.

How are these different?

Can you tell me?

It sounds like we're really drawing out the n on this one.

This is pe-n, pen.

This is m-n, men.

We don't really put a lot of emphasis on the vowel, it's more on the consonants.

So pen, men, pain, pen.

Try now.

See if you can hear and make the different sounds using your mouth.

Pain, pen, main, men.

Alright.

The next one we're going to look at are two words that have very similar meanings, but

the pronunciation is different.

The easiest way to learn this is to break the word into two.

Do you know how to say this word?

It's far.

This is like walk.

The a is your open mouth a, farther.

So let's draw a lovely open mouth for this a, far.

This one, we say fur, look at my mouth when I say fur.

So this is far and this is fur.

My mouth makes a shape like I'm going to kiss.

This is far, open mouth, and this is fur.

So get your kissing nips out and pronounce this word, fur.

Next we have to tackle the th, oh yes, the lovely th.

Is it difficult?

Yes.

When we want to pronounce the th, usually we have to think our tongues out to get the

th sound.

Far, thir.

This is no exception.

Every time you see th in English, stick your tongue out.

It might look weird, but you're going to pronounce it properly.

This word sounds like thir, Thursday, like the day in the week.

So we have far, thir.

This pronunciation is the same on the end of it, except it's fur, thir.

This is far, thir.

This is fur, thir.

Practice.

Far, thir, fur, thir.

Alright, the other thing that we have to do is more work with the letter t.

In every country, the pronunciation of the letter t is different.

I'll give you some examples.

A lot of people have problems hearing the difference between the t sound and the d sound.

And the reason is, you're not wrong.

In different countries, such as Canada, we are more likely to pronounce this word that

sounds like a d.

In Canada, people say water, bottle, thirty, twenty, butter, and better.

Also in America.

Now, America has many different kinds of accents, so I'm not even going to try and teach you

which is which there.

But just know that in Canada, and most places in America, we do pronounce the t slightly

like a d.

So it's going to sound like a cross between a d and a t.

So you would say water.

Now, if you are studying English in Europe, and if you are a fan of British English, then

you're going to actually pronounce this as a hard t.

It would sound like this, water.

Canadian English is water, and British English is water.

We would then have bottle.

Canadian would be bottle.

This would turn into, from third d to third t, you can, British people love to drink tea,

you can think of it like third t, body love.

This is the same, twenty, or if you have a more Canadian accent, twenty.

This word in America and Canada is butter, in Britain, it would be butter.

American English, Canadian English, better, where British English is better.

Now, it's up to you which is easiest for you to pronounce.

If you can say the t like a hard t, by all means go ahead.

If it's easier for you to say it like a d, then choose that.

None of them are right or wrong, it just depends who the listeners are, and who the teachers

are that are teaching you the English.

So if you have a Canadian teacher, it's going to sound like a d, and you're going to go,

"No, but it's a t when I write it, that's strange."

Now you know why.

I have many students that write w-a-d-e-r, because that's the way that I said it.

So always check, always check your spelling, and listen to the speaker.

What country are they from?

Where are they educated?

And it will help you when you have to write and spell words correctly.

Okay, so today we've looked at the differences between t and d in a sentence, and when to

use the hard t.

We've also done some vowel work with pronunciation, main/men, pain/pen, walk/work, farther/further.

I hope this has helped you, and if you do have any lessons that you would like me to

help you with, please go to www.engvid.com and leave me an email message, and I'll try

and get your lesson in.

Bye.