British Pronunciation - Beer and Bear - /ɪə/ and /eə/

Welcome back!

A few of you messaged us saying that you had problems with the sounds /ɪə/ et /eə/,

so today, we're doing a quick practice on those two sounds.

For this lesson, I need you to repeat with me so you can practice these two sounds.

So,

"Ear",

"Air",

This one is my ear,

what I breathe is the air.

"Ear"

"Air"

To get the difference between those two sounds, you have to open your mouth,

It's not good enough just to move the lips,

for example :

There's a little change in the sound, you can kind of hear it,

but, you need to open the mouth fully.

Not too much, but more.

So your mouth needs to just open more.

Let me show you :

"Ear"

"Air"

See the difference :

It's not good enough,

"Ear"

"Air"

It doesn't work,

that works!

So we've started with :

"Ear" /ɪə/

and, what I breathe,

"Air" /eə/

Let's imagine I'm a caveman and I have a spear,

my friend comes to me, and he wants to know

"do you have an extra spear?"

He could say :

Say it with me :

"Spare spear"

"Spare" - "Spear"

Next one :

What am I doing? I'm having a drink of...

And who am I drinking with?

The last and most disgusting example :

What is this?

I'm not even sorry for these examples anymore, because

I know they're disgusting, but you will remember them!

See you in the next class!