Say what you mean! Simple English words that learners often say incorrectly

Are you pronouncing the words "man" and "men" correctly? How about "word" and "world"? In this video, I will teach the pronunciation of words that are often mispronounced and confused with each other. The words I will cover in this video are "word and "world"; "walk" and "work"; "bird" and "beard"; "man" and "men"; and "woman" and "women". Watch this video for pronunciation tips on how to say these words like a native English speaker. Try my quiz at https://www.engvid.com/simple-english-words-learners-say-incorrectly/ to practice what you've learned.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi there. My name is Emma, and in today's video I am going to teach you how to improve your pronunciation by looking at pronunciation problems. A lot of students confuse words; or sometimes two words, they sound similar, and students confuse the pronunciation of those words. Okay? So in this video we're going to look at five different sets of words, and I'm going to explain how to pronounce them, and: What are the differences in their pronunciation?

So let's get started. The first word that I want to practice is the difference between "word" and "world". Okay? I know a lot of students have a lot of difficulty, especially with "world" because you have the "r" and the "l", which is really challenging for a lot of students. So let's learn how to pronounce these two different words. With "word", I've written here the International Phonetic Alphabet spelling. If you know this, great; if you don't, don't worry about it. This is just, if you do know this, this is how the word is in the IPA alphabet, the International Phonetic Alphabet. So if you want to pronounce this word, the first thing I want you to do is make an "er" sound. Can you do that? "Er". "Er", kind of like: "her", "er". Okay? Now what I want you to do is say the word: "were", "were", "they were", okay? Now, if we add a "d" here: "werd", "werd". Okay? Can you say that? "Werd". One thing that can help you sometimes is with rhymes. If you know something that rhymes with the word it can also help you with the pronunciation. So this is the past tense of "hear": "I heard". Can you say the word: "heard"? "Heard". "I heard the word". So you see these have the same sound: "word", "heard". So the very basic part of this is if you can make the "er" sound, that's the very basic part of it: "er", "word". This is also a kind of short sound: "word". Now, I want you to compare that to this sound: "world". Okay? This sound is a little bit longer for this word. "World". So I have it here in the IPA or the International Phonetic Alphabet. Now, again, these two have the same vowel sound: "er", so I want you to start with the pronunciation of this word by making this sound: "er", "er". Okay? Now, again, I want you to make the sound: "were", "were", "they were". Okay, now here's where it might get a bit tricky for some of you because of the "l", I want you to add an "l" to this sound. "Werl", "werl". Okay? And at the very end, your tongue when you make the "l" should be touching the roof of your mouth: "werl". Okay. Now we're going to add the "d": "werld", "werld". Okay? So now let's compare these two. I want you to say after me: "word", "world", "word", "world". Do you hear the difference? Okay. So this is something you can practice. Again, start with the "er" sound, that will really help you in the pronunciation of this. Now let's look at some other words that are commonly confused.

Okay, so the next sounds or words that are very commonly confused in their pronunciation are the words: "walk" and "work". Okay? Many students pronounce these as the same, but they're quite different. So let's look at "walk" first. Okay? So, again, I've written the International Phonetic Alphabet, if you know it; and if you don't know it, that's totally fine, you don't need to know it for this lesson. This is just if you know it. So, one of the main mistakes people make with the word "walk" is with the "l". Okay? Some students, they try to pronounce the "l" and they'll say: "wallk". The "l" is silent; we do not say the "l" at all. Okay? So, imagine this is the word "walk"... Well, it is the word "walk". I'm just going to remove that. So, it looks more like: "w-a-k", "wak". Okay, so the first sound I want to practice is the vowel sound because this is where a lot of students have problems, is with the vowel sound. It's an "aw" sound, okay? So, I want you to remember when you last went to your doctor. Okay? So imagine you're at the doctor's and they want to look inside your mouth, you have to make a sound, you say: "Aw". Right? When you go to the doctor's you say: "Aw". I want you to make that sound: "Aw", "aw". Okay? Notice my mouth is very open for this sound. It's not closed. It's: "aw". Okay, so you need to make that sound to make this word. Now I want you to say: "wa", "wa". All right? It's not a relaxed sound. Your mouth is very... It feels like you're doing work with it: "wa", "wa"