Learn English Words with the Same Spelling, but Different Meanings and Pronunciations - Heteronyms

Hi! Bob the Canadian here

Sometimes I feel like I should apologize because the English language can be weird.

Sometimes the English language is really strange.

Here’s a great example.

We have something called heteronyms.

These are words that are spelled exactly the same but they have a different pronunciation

and a different meaning.

So for instance, if you look here you can see that I close the door to my van.

I use the word close.

But if you look here you can see that I am standing close to the camera.

I use the word close.

So close and close are heteronyms.

They are spelled the same, but they are pronounced differently and they have a different meaning.

Let’s look at a few more.

Hey!

Bob the Canadian here.

Welcome to this video about heteronyms, words that are spelled the same but have a different

meaning and a different pronunciation.

Let’s look at a few more, but before we do if you are new here don’t forget to click

the subscribe button below and give me a thumbs up at some point during this video.

We also have the words wind and wind.

You can see here that the leaves and branches on the tree are moving because we have a little

bit of wind today.

The wind is blowing the leaves and branches.

But here you can see that I wind up my measuring tape.

I wind up my measuring tape because I am done using it and I wanna put it away.

So here we have wind, and here we have wind.

Spelt the same way, but different pronunciations and different meanings.

We also have the words sow and sow.

They both have to do with farming.

When you sow seeds it means that you are planting them in the ground.

So here you can see that I am taking some time to sow some seeds.

But a sow is a female pig.

So here you see a picture of a female pig.

So here I’m taking the time to sow some seeds and here you see a sow which is a female

pig.

Let’s look at bow and bow.

Here you can see that because I respect someone I am going to take a bow, or maybe it’s

the end of a performance and I did a really good job, I would bow to the audience.

But here you can see that I’m getting ready to use my bow.

I’m going to put an arrow in it and I’m going to pull the string back and shoot the

arrow.

So here we have bow, take a bow, and here we have bow.

We can also look at bow as the part of a ship.

And we can look a bow as something made out of ribbon.

So bow and bow.

So for this next one we’re going to talk about a type of fish and a type of musical

instrument.

This is a bass.

It is a type of fish that’s actually found in the river by my house.

But this is a bass guitar.

That means that it’s a guitar that plays lower notes than a normal guitar.

So this is a fish and it’s called a bass.

This is a guitar and it’s called a bass guitar.

Bass and bass.

So here’s two more words.

There’s a slight difference though because the one has a capital letter and the one doesn’t.

Because if you are Polish it means that you are from the country of Poland.

That’s why I’ve put a map of Poland here.

If you are from Poland you are Polish.

But here you can see that I am taking some time to polish my van.

I want to polish my van so that it is nice and shiny.

So if you’re from Poland you are Polish, but if you want something to be nice and shiny

you take some time to polish it.

Polish and polish.

So when you cry the little drop of water that comes out of your eye is called a tear.

You can see here, I’m pretty upset and so I’m crying and there are a lot of tears

coming out of my eye.

But here I wrote a test and I didn’t do very well on the test and so I decided I’m

just going to tear up this test because I’m not happy with it.

So tear and tear.

You can see here that I am very happy.

I am very content.

When we say someone is content it means that their life is going really, really well and

they are generally happy all the time.

So here I am content.

But here you see one of my Youtube videos.

When I talk about my Youtube videos I say that I am creating content.

So when you create videos for a Youtube channel it is called content.

If you write an article for a blog, it is called content.

So here I am content, and here you can see some of my content.

So when my clothes are clean I usually put them in a drawer.

I have a dresser in my room, this is a dresser, and you can see that it has drawers.

But if I knew someone who liked to draw a lot, I would say that they are a good drawer.

So here we have drawers, but here we have someone who is a good drawer.

We usually call them an artist instead of a drawer because drawer is a hard word to

say, but drawer and drawer.

So when I make videos for my Youtube channel I say that I produce them videos.

To make and to produce mean about the same thing.

So I produce videos for my Youtube channel.

But if I go to the grocery store, sometimes I buy produce.

Produce includes things like fruits and vegetables.

Things that are grown and sold in the produce section.

So I produce videos for my Youtube channel, but I buy and eat a lot of produce.

I should probably eat more produce.

I think I eat enough, but a few more every day would probably make me healthier.

So when we talk about time we know that there are sixty seconds in one minute, but when

we talk about things that are really, really small, like these grass seeds, we can describe

them as being minute.

So minute means really, really small.

So there are sixty seconds in a minute, but these grass seeds are very minute.

Minute and minute.

Well hey, I am sorry that the English language is a little bit weird, that it can be a little

bit strange and difficult to learn sometimes, but that was just a few heteronyms, words

that have the same spelling, but different pronunciations, and different meanings.

I hope it helped you learn just a little bit more English today.

It was fun doing this video and I’ll see you in the next video.

Have a great day!