Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you about some pronunciation

  • mistakes that you're probably making. So, if you look beside me, I have a bunch of words.

  • These are some of the most commonly mispronounced words in English by English... By students

  • who are learning English. So today, I'm going to teach you

  • how we actually pronounce these words.

  • So, the title of this video is "Silent Syllables". All of these words have a silent syllable

  • in them. Now, you may be wondering: "What is a syllable?" Well, a syllable is usually

  • a vowel sound, sometimes it can also be a consonant-vowel sound. So, if that's a little

  • bit confusing, let's look at some examples.

  • Here is the word "cat". It has one syllable. If I clap my hand, "cat". Okay? Now, compare

  • this to the word "student", which has two syllables. Compare this to the word "beautiful",

  • which has three, and we have here the word "incredible" which has four. Okay? So each

  • of these has a different number of syllables. You'll also notice that the length of the

  • word is different. "Incredible" is longer than "beautiful", "beautiful" is longer than

  • "student", and "student" is longer than "cat". Okay?

  • So, a silent syllable is a syllable that people believe we're supposed to pronounce, but we

  • don't actually pronounce it. Let's start with this one, because this is the most common

  • mistake I hear in my classrooms. Many students pronounce this word as "com-for-ta-ble", they

  • believe it has four syllables. This is not true. I want you to listen carefully to how

  • I pronounce this word: "comfterble", "comfortable". How many syllables did you hear? "Comfortable".

  • If you said three syllables, you are correct. So we do not pronounce "com-for-ta-ble", mm-mm,

  • we say: "comfterble". Okay? So if I wrote this how it's almost pronounced,

  • it almost looks like: "comfterble". Okay?

  • The next word that I hear a lot of students making a mistake with... This is one of my

  • favourite types of food, I hear a lot of students say: "choc-o-late", where they pronounce this

  • "o". In English, we don't pronounce that. We usually say... So we don't say "choc-o-late",

  • which is three syllables; we actually say: "choclate", "chocolate", "chocolate". How

  • many syllables does that have? If you said

  • two, you are correct. It's almost like this

  • "o" doesn't exist. So I want you to repeat after me: "chocolate", "comfortable". Okay, good.

  • Now, the next sound, or... The next word many students mispronounce is this one. First off,

  • they often miss... Mispronounce the "v" sound, which is "veg", "vegetable". Many students

  • say: "veg-e-ta-ble". Okay? So many students think it has four... Four syllables, but in

  • fact, it doesn't. Tell me: How many sounds does this have: "vegetable", "vegetable"?

  • It has three. Okay?

  • So I'm actually going to start writing this. "Comfortable" has two, "chocolate" has two.

  • "Comfortable"... Sorry, "comfortable" has three. Okay?

  • "Vegetable" has three.

  • The next word is another word a lot of students make a mistake with, similar to "chocolate",

  • we have here an "o". We don't pronounce this "o". Okay? So many students say "brocc-o-li",

  • but we don't say "broccoli", we say: "broccli". Okay? So, in this case, it only has two syllables:

  • "brocc-li".

  • Okay? And we will go over these one more time at the end of the video.

  • Okay, very common word here, how many syllables do you think it has? If you said:

  • "in-trest-ing",

  • you are correct, it has three syllables. Many students say: "in-ter-est-ing". "That is very interesting."

  • We don't say it like that. We say: "in-trest-ing". Okay? "In-trest-ing",

  • so this one has three syllables also.

  • Okay, another very common word... Okay, I've used the Canadian/British spelling. If you're

  • an American or an... A speaker of American English, there will be no "u" here. How many

  • syllables do you think this word has?

  • Okay? Let's say it together: "Favourite", "favourite".

  • How many did you hear? If you said: "fav-rite",

  • and you heard two syllables, you are correct.

  • We do not say: "fav-our-ite", mm-mm, we say: "fav-rite". Okay?

  • Okay, here's another one a lot of students make mistakes with, many students will say:

  • "temp-er-a-ture", but we don't say it this way. I want you to listen carefully, and choose:

  • How many syllables are there in this word?

  • "Tem-pra-ture", "temperature". "Tem-pra-ture".

  • Okay, so there are three syllables in this one.

  • Okay? We have this word... Again, these are all very common words. A lot of students will

  • say: "ev-er-y-one". They think it has four syllables. Now, I want you to listen to me

  • and tell me: How many syllables do you hear?

  • "Ev-ry-one", "everyone", "ev-ry-one".

  • If you said three, you are correct. Okay?

  • And finally, we have two more. A lot of students will say this as: "nat-ur-all-y", but we don't

  • pronounce it that way. Listen carefully to how I say it.

  • "Nat-ral-ly", "naturally", "naturally",

  • "nat-ral-ly". It has three syllables.

  • And the last one, similar to "chocolate", many students say: "soph-o-more", but it's

  • not. "Soph-more", "sophomore".

  • So it's almost like this "o", we don't pronounce. It's a

  • silent sound. "Sophomore". It has two syllables.

  • Okay, so let's do this very slowly. I want you to repeat each of these words after me.

  • And you can say it slow, and then start making it a little bit faster. Okay? So let's start

  • over here, and we will work our way across. "Naturally". Repeat after me: "naturally",

  • "nat-ral-ly".

  • "Sophomore", "sophomore", "sophomore".

  • Okay, good. Okay? Okay, this one, I really

  • want you to practice: "comfortable", "comfterble", "comfortable",

  • "That chair is comfortable." Okay?

  • Okay? Now, again, my favourite food - very important you pronounce this correctly:

  • "chocolate", "choclate", "chocolate". Okay.

  • Okay, here we have another word:

  • "vegtable", "vegtable", "vegetable".

  • Okay? So, again, three.

  • "Broccoli". So, again, repeat after me:

  • "broccli", "broccoli". Okay.

  • Okay. Repeat after me, please: "intresting", "in-trest-ing",

  • "interesting".

  • "Favourite", "favrite", "favourite".

  • This one: "temprature", "temprature", "temprature".

  • And finally: "evryone", "everyone", "everyone". Okay.

  • And there you have it, 10 words we often make pronunciation mistakes with when we are learning

  • English. Okay?

  • So I invite you to check out our website at www.engvid.com. There you can

  • do a quiz where you can actually practice syllables and practice counting how many each

  • of these have. So, I invite you to come check out that website,

  • and until next time, take care.

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you about some pronunciation

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it