Are You Saying These Words WRONG? How to Pronounce Double Vowels in English

Well hey there! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

This is an English pronunciation lesson

and we're going to be talking about some extremely

common words that are often mispronounced

by English learners.

Words like these ones.

Now do you notice anything about these words

that's similar? What do they have in common?

Apart from the fact that they're all a little tricky

to pronounce. They've all got

two vowels together in the word, right?

It does make them a little tricky to pronounce.

And this is quite common in English, right?

There are many words just like this that are spelt with

two vowels together.

Now sometimes they're pronounced as

separate syllables like in the word 'liar'.

Sometimes they're pronounced as just one vowel sound

like 'deal'.

And sometimes one of them is silent

like in the word 'moreover'.

It's pretty annoying, huh?

So by the end of this lesson,

you're going to be able to pronounce literally thousands

of English words correctly, clearly and naturally

just like a native speaker would.

So stay tuned!

Vowels are one of the most challenging,

possibly the most challenging part

of English pronunciation.

There are just five vowel letters but there are

up to twenty different vowel sounds.

Now English is not phonetic so the letter that you see

is not always pronounced in the same way and this is

especially true for vowels.

One of my subscribers in a previous video

suggested that:

"Do you know what?

Maybe we should just scratch

the English alphabet altogether and replace it

with the symbols of the IPA?"

It's not a bad idea at all.

At least we would all know how to pronounce

English words, right?

Now I'm a huge fan of the IPA,

the international phonetic alphabet.

It's one of the best tools that you have

to study and improve your pronunciation.

Actually, I've got some lessons about it right here

so we can go through step by step how to use it.

And I've also added a few links into the description box

below to help you improve your pronunciation

using the IPA

to help you sound more natural

when you speak in English.

Today I want to keep things simple,

we're going to go over five

common pronunciation mistakes

with vowels that as an English teacher,

I hear a lot from my students.

And I'm quite curious to note if these are the same

kinds of mistakes that you make as well.

So we'll focus on words with double vowels

and how to pronounce them correctly.

Let's start with this one here.

Do you know how to pronounce this word correctly?

It's an easy one to mispronounce.

Just by looking at it, you might

sort of think it would be something like:

But the correct pronunciation is 'fuel'.

Now notice that when this word is spoken,

we actually add a consonant sound, the sound.

Like the word 'you' with a

at the front of it.

Actually, quite like this word.

Then we just need to add an L.

Now when native speakers say this word they push

these vowel letters together into just one sound.

There's just one syllable. So say it with me.

We need to get some fuel

on the way to the supermarket.

Now there are some minor variations depending

on the native English accent that you'll hear

but 'fuel' is very standard.

The words 'dual' and 'cruel'

have the same vowel letters and also the same

vowel sound. They're pronounced in the same way

with just one syllable.

'Building'

Now you'll see UI in all kinds of words, right?

UI can be pronounced in a lot of different ways

in English.

These all have the same combination of letters, right?

You can see that there are different vowel sounds

used for all of these different words

despite the fact that they all use the same letters.

Today we're really going to focus on words

that have UI in them

but they are pronounced with a short sound.

Like 'building'.

So notice that you can't hear the U right?

It's silent.

Now this can actually be quite a challenge for native

French speakers. In the word build, built,

building, builder,

in all of them, the U is silent.

It's the vowel sound, the short.

To make that sound, all you need to do is

drop your jaw a little, open your mouth.

The builder built a building by the school.

Now let's check out a couple of other examples

because it's quite common to see

UI in English words but to only hear the short

sound pronounced.

Like in: circuit.

biscuit.

guilty.

and guitar.

So try repeating each of those words with me

out loud. Ready?

Now the OU in this word looks like it should

probably be pronounced

like in the word 'couch' or 'doubt' perhaps.

But listen to the pronunciation because

the vowel sound is different.

So 'touch' is pronounced with an

vowel sound, not the

vowel sound. It's

as in 'up'

Gosh English is annoying!

Try repeating it after me!

See how my mouth moves to make that sound.

Compare it to

It's a completely different movement

So it's

not

Incorrect. It's

Let's touch base later this week.

Let's touch base.

So OU here is pronounced

in 'touch'. It's not always pronounced this way

but there are a lot of other words that have this same

pronunciation like:

cousin,

double,

and trouble.

Practise with me but try not to let your eyes

fool you when you look at these words.

In fact, close your eyes. It's a little easier,

just listen to the sound that I'm making

and repeat it at home.

Now if you're a Spanish speaker or a Portuguese

speaker or in your language you're used to

pronouncing every letter that you see,

then it can be a little tough to break the habit.

It's difficult to break bad habits with pronunciation

because often you don't

realise that you're making them, right?

So if you want to improve your pronunciation,

I'd really recommend getting some help from a native

English speaker or teacher if you can.

Ask a colleague, find a tutor or sign up to some

online classes with Lingoda.

They've got English teachers from the UK and the US,

all native speakers. And if you want to find out which

sounds you need to improve and how to improve them,

this is a really great place to start

because classes are really affordable

so you can do a few of them over a few weeks

and get continual feedback to help you improve.

Now the next two examples are really common.

They're going to help you to pronounce literally

thousands of English words correctly

so make sure you don't go anywhere.

Alright, this little pronunciation trick

is going to help you to pronounce

many, many, English words naturally,

just as a native English speaker does

and it's actually much easier than you think.

This word has three syllables.

So listen to the sound that that final syllable makes.

It's short and it's low in pitch.

The schwa sound.

If you've watched this pronunciation lesson right here,

you'll know that unstressed syllables often reduce down

to the schwa sound.

Your eyes might be expecting those vowel letters

to produce a sound like the one in 'mouse'

But the vowel sounds are incorrect here.

If you look in a dictionary, you look at the IPA symbols,

it will tell you the correct pronunciation.

as in 'air'

That final syllable

is very flat and low in pitch.

Now there's many, many words in English that end in

-ous and you can use these same pronunciation rules

for all of these words too.

There are just so many of them, right?

See what I mean?

The ending is really, really common

and it's almost always pronounced

exactly like this

unstressed.

Let's try saying all those words again together,

so follow after me.

Now actually there's another double vowel

combination there that doesn't really sound how it looks

cautious

and delicious.

So how do you pronounce this word?

Say it out loud for me.

There's a couple of things about this word

that make it tricky

but I'm not specifically talking about only this word here,

I'm talking about all words that end in -tion

and there are thousands of English words

that end this way.

So just like in the last example,

the final syllable reduces down to become a schwa.

Now my Brazilian students, I'm looking at you,

this is not to be pronounced

It's not

it's just one syllable and it's always unstressed.

So it uses the schwa.

It's short and it's low in pitch.

Close your eyes and just listen to the sound.

So see how little movement there is in my mouth

when I make this sound?

Alright let's try this whole word at natural pace.

Now another handy tip about all words ending in -tion

is the syllable before -tion is usually

the stressed syllable.

How many other words can you think of that

end in -tion?

Add them to the comments below, I want to see

how many of these words we can get down there

to help us practise.

They all follow the same rules

and actually,

I've got a whole lesson that's completely dedicated

to words that end in -tion right up there.

And I also talk a little bit about -sion and -cian as well

because a similar set of pronunciation rules apply.

The IO or the IA reduces down to the schwa.

Can you think of any others?

Alright it's time to be open and honest now.

Were any of those words difficult for you?

Or did you realise perhaps that you've been

pronouncing some of them slightly incorrectly?

It's likely that you don't mispronounce all of them

but there were probably a couple in there

that you need to work on, right?

If you enjoyed this lesson, make sure you subscribe

just down there and come and find me on Facebook

and Instagram as well.

And tell me, are there any other words that always

trip you up and get you tongue-tied?

Let me know in the comments and I'll try and make

a lesson to help you.

There are plenty of mmmEnglish lessons to help you

practise and improve your pronunciation, like here,

and your natural English expression.

Plenty to keep you busy, right?

I'll see you in the next lesson.