Funny Pronunciation Lesson: Bitch vs Beach, Shit vs Sheet

Aww yeah, Global Citizens, I’m Justin, your Fluency Guide from RealLifeGlobal.com, where

we help you not just learn English, but to live it.

To start with, I have a very important, but delicate pronunciation question for you

Have you ever mistakenly pronounced the word BITCH, when you really meant to say the word BEACH,

or maybe you said SHIT, when you were trying to say SHEET, or quite possibly you said FUCK

when you really wanted to say FORK?

Garçom (Waiter)?

Yes Madam.

Can I have a fork (“f*ck”) please.

Thank you.

I’m afraid it’s not that kind of club.

Or maybe PISS when you were trying to say PEACE - like a PIECE of toast.

Did people laugh at you?

Did you laugh with them?

Well either way if you don’t know how to pronounce these delicate, critical

words in English, every time you open your mouth it’s like walking through a mine field.

Well after today’s lesson, NEVER AGAIN, because I’m going to teach you

the CORRECT WAY to pronounce these delicate words,

But first we’re going to laugh our butts off at exactly what NOT TO DO with the most

hilarious, famous bad pronunciation video that you will ever watch: The Italian Man

Who Went to Malta.

But first, to make sure that you practice and really perfect these sounds, I really

recommend that you download the Power Pronunciation Activity to accompany this lesson.

You can find the link in the description, or right here.

This activity contains a PDF breakdown of this entire lesson, plus links to top resources,

and an MP3 that gives you the chance to practice along and imitate.

If you’re a teacher, you can even share this with your students.

One day I´m gonna to Malta to a big hotel.

In the morning I go down to eat a breakfast.

I tell the waitress that I wanna two pieces of toast.

She brings me only one piece.

I tell her “I want two piece”. ("piss")

She said “Go to the toilet”.

I said “You no understand.

I wanna piece on my plate”.

She said “You better not piss on the plate you son of a bitch!”

I don’t even know the lady and she called me a sun of the beach.

Later, I go to eat at a bigger restaurant.

The waitress brings me a spoon and a knife but no fork.

I tell her “I wanna fork” ("fuck"). She tell me “Everybody wanna fuck!”

I tell her “You no understand.

I wanna fork on the table!”

She said “You better no fuck on the table!

You son of a bitch!”

So I go back to my room in a hotel, and there is no sheets on the bed.

Call the manager and tell him “I wanna sheet” He tells me to go to the toilet!

I said “You no understand.

I wanna sheet ("shit") on my bed”.

He said “You better not shit on my bed, you son of a bitch”

I go to the check out and the man at the desk said “Peace on you” and I said “Piss

on you too, you son of a beach”.

I´m gonna back to Italia, ‘Arrivederci11’

Well, hopefully nothing that painfully embarrassing has ever happened to you with your English

pronunciation, but just to make sure that it never does, let’s take a really good

deep look at the subtle, but critical difference between these two sounds, as well as the mouth

movement, and muscles of articulation.

So to really avoid the embarrassing mispronunciations that we just went through, you really have

to master the difference between these two critical sounds, the Short I, the “IH”

sound, “IH,” and the long E, the “EE” sound, “EE.”

So just to give you a few examples- feel free to listen and imitate, to repeat, grab a recorder

and even listen to yourself and listen back.

So the IH sound, the short I, we have LIVE, IT, FILL, BITCH, SHIT, PISS

and the long E sound, we have LEAVE, EAT, FEEL, BEACH, SHEET, and PEACE.

Now we’re going to do a minimal pairs exercise and compare them really quickly.

I’m still gonna give you a chance to repeat.

So we have live-leave, it–eat, fill–feel, bitch–beach, shit–sheet, piss–peace.

Okay excellent, the sound is really gonna help, but now let’s have a look at the mouth

movements, the muscle of articulation, which, for most people will be really helpful in

mastering these sounds.

So here we have a profile diagram of the mouth and the organs of articulation, which I’m

going to use to show you the main differences between these two sounds.

The three things that distinguish these sounds occur in:

The movement of the tongue, the lips, and the jaw.

Let’s take a look at the long e, or the “ee”-“ee” sound, present in the words

LEAVE, EAT, FEEL, BEACH, SHEET, and PEACE.

When you make the EE sound, while the tip of the tongue stays down, the front part of

the tongue lifts toward the roof of the mouth without touching- this is the roof of the

mouth here- another more common meaning of ROOF is the roof of a house.

So there should be a small space here between the front part of the tongue and the roof

of the mouth.

When making the EE sound, the lips will often open up

to stretch horizontally as you can see in this picture.

It’s good to exaggerate this when you practice EE - EE, almost like you’re half smiling.

So just to review, the long EE sound—EE- EE is made when the lips stretch open horizontally

and the front part of the tongue lifts, or curls, toward the roof of the mouth, leaving

just a little bit of space between the tongue and the roof.

Keep in mind that the jaw does not move.

Give that a try at home— it really helps to do it, to feel it.

EE, EE, EE.

Leave- Eat- Feel- Beach- Sheet- Peace.

So the EE sound causes a horizontal opening of the mouth, from side to side- now compare

this to the IH sound, on the other hand- IH, IH in words like LIVE, IT, FILL, BITCH, SHIT, and PISS

you see, it does NOT open horizontally,

but instead it opens in a slight vertical way.

This is because the IH sound- IH- causes the jaw to drop down, which leaves more space

between the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

So to review, the short I, or the IH sound is made when jaw drops a little bit – causing

the lips to open vertically, and the tongue to lower and give more space between the front

of the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

Let’s give that a try at home and really feel it in our mouths- IH, IH, IH.

LIVE - IT - FILL - BITCH - SHIT - PISS

Aww yeah, I hope you enjoyed today’s lesson, that it helped your pronunciation, and that

this embarrassing mistake never ever happens to you.

If you haven’t yet, feel FREE to download the free power pronunciation activity, which

includes a PDF that covers this entire lesson, links to the top resources for these sounds,

as well as an MP3 so that you can practice on your own at home.

If you haven’t already, please give this channel a subscribe, if you like this video

give it a thumbs up, we would really love that, and finally I have one more thing that

I want to ask of you, a new activity that I’m just trying out: question of the day.

So my question for you is what’s the most embarrassing pronunciation mistake that you

have ever made.

I’m gonna share my answer in the comments below and post it on top.

I would love it if you shared yours, cuz really it’s the best thing when we can laugh at ourselves

when we can have fun, and recognize that it’s part of the process.

Aww Yeah!