13 Words You Might Say WRONG | Speak Like A Native Speaker

hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

in this video I'm actually going to share an audio class with you guys okay

I made this class a few weeks ago and it's about 13 words you might be saying

wrong because of silent letters in English so we talked about this a lot on

my channel okay how English is not a phonetic language and if you try to

learn pronunciation by studying the way words are written you're doing it all

wrong and you're just not gonna sound natural like a native speaker and you're

gonna make lots of mistakes okay and I want to help you guys eliminate these

mistakes okay so these are words that lots of non-native English speakers

frequently mess up okay so here's what I want you to do as you're listening to

the class I want you to identify if you're making any of these mistakes okay

and then let me know in the comments if you are okay which words were you

mispronouncing hopefully you are not mispronouncing any of them but chances

are you're probably saying some of these words wrong okay so that's it let me

know also in the comments if you guys like these types of classes okay audio

classes if you do then I can do more for you here on YouTube you guys know that I

love your feedback so thank you for always leaving me such kind and

thoughtful interesting and funny comments that's it you guys let's start

the class I chose to do an audio so that you guys could really hear what I'm

saying and focus on what I'm saying without being distracted by my face or

anything else because this is a pronunciation lesson and the thing with

improving your pronunciation is that anything you see while you're focusing

on listening can and will distract you from what you are hearing and this is a

huge problem because English already is not an easy language to learn when it

comes to pronunciation because it's not a phonetic language and normally you

learn pronunciation right by seeing a word your teacher shows you a word and

then wants you to repeat it the problem with this method is you first learn the

sounds of the letters like H makes the huh sound okay T makes the sound

so first your teacher teaches you the sounds that the letters make but then

when they try to show you a word and help you improve your pronunciation you

mess up because now you're trying to put the sounds that you learned and use them

to form the word rather than listening to how the word actually sounds when

it's pronounced okay so that's why I'm not doing a video with this class

because I really want you to hear what I'm saying and to focus on what you're

hearing and not be distracted by anything else because you can learn

pronunciation just by listening this is like a crazy crazy thing and a big

secret I guess because so many people when they teach pronunciation they teach

it by showing you how to place your lips and how to place your tongue and all of

that stuff and it seems like it should make sense because you're seeing

visually how to do it but then when you try to imitate that it's difficult right

it's difficult and you're focused so much on where your tongue should go

that you're not actually listening and in order to improve your pronunciation

the number one thing you have to do is listen closely so again I'm not doing a

video because I don't want to distract you guys but what I want to talk about

are 13 words that you might say wrong because of silent letters now we talked

about English not being a phonetic language so you cannot you cannot learn

pronunciation by reading okay you have to treat reading in English and speaking

in English you know pronunciation and reading as two completely separate

things the way English is written is not the

way English is spoken you just have to accept that and you have to listen to

what you're truly truly hearing okay so I'm gonna go through some of these words

but before I start going through them I just want to let you guys know that I

have a complete pronunciation guide to get you started with this method of

imitation and you can download it after you listen to this audio okay so go

ahead and get that as soon as you can because I explained this more in detail

and I give you a list of almost 80 words that a lot of people mispronounce

they're very simple everyday words but because they might have silent letters

and stuff like that a lot of people mispronounce them

okay so go ahead and get that guide right after you finish listening to this

okay so let's get started with the 13 words now I can pretty much guarantee

you that almost all of you mess up on at least one of these words and my goal for

you is to learn how to say these correctly and you're gonna learn just by

listening the first word is honest honest now I know you can say that I

know if you're in a quiet place right now if you know you're not around your

family or friends you can just repeat that right after me honest and I know

without a shadow of a doubt that you can say that correctly the problem is that

the way it's spelled is with an H so you see that H and you think like that okay

it's not honnest with an H that H is silent so it's honest and I want to

bring up something else because a lot of you are even reading the vowels in

English phonetically or trying to you bring the vowel sounds from your native

language and then you try to say them in English so the est a lot of you guys try

to say est est like honest honest okay and that is why you have an accent in

English right because you're bringing your vowel sounds and your language

patterns into English rather than just repeating clearly what I say okay so

listen to it one last time honest honest notice I'm not even pronouncing that e

so technically that E is silent also I'm saying nst it's like a very honest

nst nst nst okay I'm going from the N to the ST

honest okay number two receipt receipt I went to the store I bought some stuff

and the cashier gave me a receipt receipt now let's talk about why this

word is difficult this word is difficult because when you read it you see a P you

see a P and you think receipt but when you listen to me say it right now right

if you're not reading it I don't say any P sound I'm saying receipt receipt now

another thing you this is that the last part of the word I

cut it off very quickly okay I don't say receipt

slowly or anything like that I say receipt receipt receipt

there is a melody to every language and you have to learn to hear the melody in

English if you want to sound like a native English speaker okay

receipt so don't say Russy okay don't mess it up just say it exactly as I say

it receipt receipt also something you should notice is that the T I didn't

say receipt with a T with a strong T at the end okay I cut it off and I glottalized

the sound the sound stops in the back of my throat

okay the sound stops in the back of my throat receipt and that's where I cut it

off okay let's go on to the next one Island Island that's really simple isn't

it Island notice that I'm not pronouncing the s I'm not saying iSland

like Hawaii is an iSland I'm not saying that the S is silent so we say Hawaii is

an island or I don't even say AN sometimes I just say N have you

noticed that in English that we reduce the word and and the word and a lot of

the times and we just say N so if you want to sound like more like a native

speaker you could do that too so Hawaii is an island isN isN is an isN is an

becomes isN Hawaii is an island is an island is an island okay and the D at

the end a lot of the times we cut the D off in English we cut off the end sounds

of the words a lot of the time when it ends in a tea or a D sound and this is

how we form connected speech so if you've ever been wondering how to form

connected speech you guys there are people that will make this really

complicated okay they will make you learn hundreds of

rules in order to learn how to do this you do not have to learn all those rules

you just have to listen and imitate okay I've done tons of research on this and I

can tell you that if you really want to understand why for everything like oh

why is this letter silent why is this pronounced like this why is this spelled

like this you will find the answer there is an answer but I'm telling you that

you will have to learn hundreds maybe even thousands of spelling rules

pronunciation rules exceptions to the rules etc you guys it gets really really

complicated so the easiest way to improve your pronunciation without

having to even learn the phonetic alphabet or anything like that is to

listen closely and then play with the sound of your voice what do you hear

okay listen listen listen lately I've been

working on my English accent like my British English accent I love playing

around with accents so this is another thing too you have to be motivated to

practice so if you want to sound more American if you want to sound more

British you know pick the accent that you love the most and then listen to

people that speak like that and imitate them yesterday I was doing this in the

car and you guys like I suck I'm not very good at British English accent right

now but I am choosing one person and I'm watching videos from this one person and

I'm imitating them okay because everybody has a different tone to their

voice everyone has a different mannerism and speaking so if you focus on

following one person listening to one person and sounding like them you just

listen and imitate listen and imitate listen and imitate okay it is that easy

so I hope this is really good news for you guys okay let's move on to the next

one number four answer answer there is a W

when we read it it looks like it should say ansWer but the W is silent so we

just say answer answer number five debt debt it's good to avoid getting into

debt now this word is spelled D E B T and a lot of people say deBt that

is wrong I don't even know what that is like if I hear that word I'm like whoa

what are what are you saying because that sounds nothing like debt

debt so again listen to what I'm saying and

repeat it say what I say don't say what you read okay don't make up stuff just

say what I say all right so debt now here the B is

silent the T is also Glottalized so we don't even say debT okay because that

takes too much effort we're lazy when we speak we want it to be as easy as

possible so we just say debt number six would would now a lot of people see the

L in would like wouLd you pass me a napkin please

they see the L and they say wouLd wouLd so that is why your accent comes out

because you're pronouncing that L and you're not supposed to okay so it's not

wouLd and number seven is should number eight is could but you guys

pronounce this a lot and you say wouLd shouLd couLd okay

and this is why you have an accent it should be would should could alright

great number nine ache like I have a backache

all right the H is silent it looks like acHe like a backacHe right

because there's a CH there but the H is silent and here's another thing we

glottalize this one too so a lot of sounds in English as you guys should

know get cut off because of the glottal stop the glottal stop just means you're

cutting off the sound in your throat okay eight so I have a backache backache

my back hurts right now I have a really bad backache I don't but I'm just using

this as an example alright so right there

I'm literally saying a but I'm cutting off the a sound so quickly to say I have

a backache I have a back eight so you have to burst the sound out of your

mouth the a and cut it off just as quickly as it starts to say ache without

the K part because we just take that off my back hurts because

I'm backache and I need to go to the store to get some medicine for it okay

next ten you guys this is a big one and I really really want you to all stop

saying this incorrectly okay huge the word is months like it's ten months till

my birthday it isn't that's just an example or in

three months I'm gonna travel to Europe okay that's another example months now

people see the th there and they say monThs okay monThs how else do they say

this wrong I don't I don't remember but all you have to do is see it doesn't

even matter it does not matter how people say it incorrectly

what matters is saying it exactly the way I say it and the first part is MA

okay then you have the N moN and then you have the S right after moNthS moNthS

moNthS okay I hope that was clear eleven this word is difficult a lot of people

mess this up and I even had to ask myself how can I even teach this because

when I try to say it slowly I kept messing it up myself and I need to tell

you guys something a lot of English teachers when they slow

down words to show you how to pronounce it they actually distort the word

because sometimes it's very difficult to slow down a word and maintain the

original sound that that word has because for example a word that has a

glottal stop the glottal stop happens so quickly it's difficult to show people in

slow motion and sometimes it's literally impossible so just bear that in mind the

next word is text text okay like yesterday she sent me ten texts and all

I could think about was you know I'm busy and I don't have time to reply okay

or hey I sent you some texts yesterday did you get them I sent you some texts

yesterday did you get them I sent you some text there's a T in there so it

looks like you should say texts with the T okay but that's not how we

say it we just say hey I think you some texts did you get'em I sent you some

texts did you get'em I sent you some texts did you get'em

alright and there you can even hear more fast speech

I'm not saying did you get them I'm saying did you did you and I'm not even

saying you I'm saying yeah did you get them did you did you get them alright so

here's the thing you guys when it comes to pronunciation trust me on this all

you need to do is listen and don't be afraid to listen to people speaking at a

normal rate a lot of times you think oh I don't understand or I'm struggling I

can't copy it as quickly don't worry listen to people at a normal rate and

then practice repeating chunks of what you hear so if I say for example hey I

sent you a bunch of texts yesterday did you get them

you maybe cannot repeat that at the same rate that I say it you probably

understood it but since you can't repeat it at the same rate practice the part

that you can repeat I sent you a bunch of text yesterday did you get them

maybe you can repeat the did ya did ya or did you get'em did you get'em notice

I'm not saying them I'm saying em did you get'em alright the next one is

muscle muscle muscle we go to the gym to build muscle alright the C is silent

it's not musCle it's muscle muscle and I know you can say that I know that if

you were sitting with me here right now I'm in my room I'm at my desk if you

were here with me okay and I said muscle just like that

and you closed your eyes and listen to how I said it you would be able to

repeat it and you would sound almost exactly like me because you're focusing

on imitation alright so the next one is Wednesday Wednesday I have a dentist

appointment on Wednesday Wednesday now here's how people usually mess this up

they say weDnEsday weDnEsday because there's a D in there the D is

silent okay it's day Wednesday obviously I have an

American accent so other people might say it a little bit differently but

remember you have to just focus on one accent and learn that Wednesday the

other thing is that it sounds like wins wins like win like to win something it

does not sound like weds it's not an E sound okay it's not Wed nest day or

Wednesday Wednesday nobody says WEdnesday we say Wednesday

Wednesday okay I mean maybe somebody says it somewhere

but again when I'm what I'm saying nobody says it like that I'm talking

about nobody that speaks with my accent I'm from California so if you want an

American and Californian accent then you should focus on imitating my speech or

someone else you know who's from the same region who speaks like me and who

you would like to imitate okay so here again I need to make this really clear

if you want to improve your pronunciation you need to focus on

listening clearly and imitating that is it that is it if you hear that you're

saying something incorrectly like a lot of people roll there are in English they

say Red instead of red red I have a red car they'll say I have a Red caR

okay you know we do not roll our R's in English so right there that would be one

of your problem areas and you need to listen and you need to focus on okay how

do I do that what should I do okay and it's gonna be

frustrating but do you know what I've noticed

whoever is dedicated to improving their pronunciation by listening and repeating

listening repeat listen repeat listen repeat whoever is dedicated they always

learn the correct pronunciation the people who struggle with pronunciation

for years and years and years 99% of the time it's because you simply do not

practice okay you simply do not take the time to listen and repeat and you have

settled for your pronunciation you may not like your pronunciation but you

don't dislike enough to do something about it and to

change it okay so you have to be bothered enough by your own

pronunciation or you have to want better pronunciation enough to actually do

something about it because if you don't you will not improve that's the name of

the game you guys language is like music it is musical there's rhythm there's

flow there's tone there's melody okay and a singer does not improve if they

don't sing and if they don't work on improving specific aspects of their

voice while they sing okay you have to do the same thing if

you want to improve your pronunciation but again the method is very simple and

that is what I wanted to talk to you about today showing you in illustrating

with these words that have silent letters all you have to do is listen

closely and imitate again the problem is most of you read English more than you

listen to it and a lot more than you speak it so that the way it's written

you're inserting sounds from your own language you're reading sounds

phonetically which you shouldn't be doing okay and you have two separate

written English as I said from spoken English to improve your pronunciation

please just listen to what I say and imitate it okay that's it for this

lesson if you enjoyed it please share and don't forget to download your guide

I'll see you guys soon bye bye