Name: Do You Make These Pronunciation Mistakes? Ep.03
Uploaded: 2017-12-10T10:52:54.000Z
Duration: 13 min 36 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

welcome back to another episode of our
minimal pairs series we've got a couple

of scenarios where the speaker might get
in a spot of trouble so let's go check

Modal verbs - A2

it out and see how we can improve upon
these errors let's go

welcome to real English ah Chazz it was
my mom's 60th birthday last night

congratulations to your mom Wow sixty
that's old I mean that's young yes yes

she's 60 yes Oh what did you do for her
did you get something nice? I made her a

lovely cake chocolate cake... nice was it
tasty? oh it was gorgeous it was

delicious scrumptious luscious so anyway I was I was there till about 10:30 and

you know I like to get my head down
early so I made my excuses had a little

bit more cake and then I left a turd
at her house and then I just

walked home and it was a lovely night a
lovely night you left a shit in your

mum's house on her birthday...Harry!
in this scene Charlie was not best

impressed with me because according to
my story I had left my mum an unwanted

surprise on her birthday by of course I
am a lovely son I would never leave my

mum turd on her birthday and what I
meant to say was that I left her a third

of the cake now it's quite important to
point out that the large majority of

Irish people don't actually pronounce
the 'th'

sound in third so they would also make
the same mistake that I made but on the

whole as an English Learner it is highly
recommendable that you do distinguish

these two sounds because it makes you
much easier to understand as a

speaker so listen up for the
pronunciation instructions and some

other minimal pairs for you to practice
the sound in third is a dental

approximate consonant which means the
sound is made by bringing your tongue

close to your teeth
so put your tongue between your teeth

very close to the top row of the teeth
and now you need to aspirate air

strongly through your tongue and your
top teeth

yeah okay that's good yeah I can
feel your pressing quite tightly with

your tongue against your teeth so maybe
release it a little bit that's better

if there is no air smoothly passing
through that means your tongue and teeth

are too close so you should technically
be able to breathe while maintaining

yeah yeah yeah I sound like Darth Vader I
am your father for the sound in turd we

need to create an onstruent consonant
which is one that stops the passage of

air through the mouth and then releases
so place your tongue just behind your

top teeth so that it's actually touching
them now

push air into your mouth so the tongue
blocks the air and then let it go - good

so this should be a completely unvoiced
sound so if you put your hand on your

throat you shouldn't feel any vibrations
try it again.. yeah there;s nothing there okay so what do we do we

give and we take and what did I leave in
my mummy's toilet ...turd.. repeat after

turd turd good good
so minimal pairs for third and third what've

we got Harry taught and thought taught
and thought you had to..think about that

we've also got Thai and thigh
tie and thigh and finally we have tin

and thin tin and and thin so you'll never guess what Harry.. what... I went for a job

interview a week ago and I went to meet
with the HR representative he sat me

down and then something weird happened..go on.. so I was sitting in the

office and then the CEO walks in and
he's got a bear in his hands he had a

bear in his hand yeah I was so confused
and a bit worried as well because I

thought he might throw the bear at me
that's very strange

for a sales job was it an interview at a
zoo or some kind of bear sanctuary?

what...Chaz you know my cousin Harriet..
the one that many men find attractive

yeah what about Harriet she's got a new
pet and it's a little bit strange trust

her to get a stranger pet yeah what is
it? she's got a pet beer

yeah yeah a pet beer yeah she takes it out
for walks she feeds it she gives her

drink
it's very peculiar is it a big beer?

You know pretty big haha.. of course in
these two scenes we have seen Charlie

and I mispronouncing the words bear and
beer which is a very common mistake

amongst foreign learners of English
Charlie's potential boss actually walked

in the office with the alcoholic
beverage beer in his hands and Harriet

got herself a massive furry bear for her
cottage in the woods now we're going to

learn how we can create these two very
important vowel sounds in English which

allow us to distinguish these two words
which foreign learners often find quite

tricky listen up for the air sound in
bear release your jaw so that your

mouth is nice and open but slightly less
open than the 'ah' sound in the last

video that's it keep your tongue relaxed
and just behind your bottom teeth and

then make a long voice sound a very very
good very good chance now for the 'ear'

sound in beer we need to make a
diphthong which is two sounds combined

within the same syllable meaning your
mouth will have to change positions your

mouth will start in the e position like
you are smiling and end in the position

'uh' which is a schwa where your mouth will be slightly more open and completely

relaxed so let's start with the e sound
E

good and now on to the 'uh' sound and now combine them sliding from e to the 'uh'

.. good now a bit quicker ...
good again .. what do you have on the

side of your face? a beer
no what allows you to hear?...

my ear and if you cry what comes out of
your eyes a tear very good repeat after us

bear beer bear beer so another minimal
pair which contains the same phonemes as

this one is fair and fear fair and fear
another minimal pair is tear and tear

tear and tear.. and one last one is share and sheer
share and sheer depending on dialect and

styles of speaking there are common
alternative pronunciations for these two

sounds for example the schwa that forms the

second part of the ear diphthong is
often not pronounced especially in

connected speech so for this sentence a
fully articulated pronunciation would

sound like this I shed a tear over the
sheer size of my beer whereas others

with a more contemporary pronunciation
would say I shed a tear over the sheer

size of my beer
in regards to the air sound in bear you

may hear people saying this sound as a
diphthong pronouncing a schwa after the

air sound so while Charlie and I say the
unfair bear likes to tear my hair out

others may say the unfair bear likes to
tear my hair out however nowadays this

pronunciation is considered quite
old-fashioned and far less common than

the monophthong version which Charlie and I have taught today but it's still good

to be aware of these alternative
pronunciations and if you want to adopt

a more traditional one then that's
perfectly acceptable too - that's all for

today but we hope you have found these
minimal pairs useful do remember to

keep practicing them out loud so that
you can master them and do give us a

thumbs up if you want to see more videos
like this but for now it's your turn to

get active and answer these questions in
the comment section... do it so I can see

go now.... before we go we'd like to inform
you of our pretty amazing English

immersion course that we are proud to
offer any students who want an intense

and fast way to grow their English
speaking confidence and abilities so if

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Do You Make These Pronunciation Mistakes? Ep.03

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