Do you confuse words like bear and beer?
How about bird and beard?
In this British English pronunciation lesson, you're going to learn how to pronounce 10 of the most commonly confused and mispronounced words by English learners.
If you'd like your own personal copy of 30 of the most commonly mispronounced words in English, plus a bonus podcast episode to listen to their pronunciation, then you can get your free PDF version here by scanning the QR code or by clicking the link down below in the description.
Let's take a look at our first pair.
We have bear beer, bear beer.
Bear can also be pronounced as bear, so you have bear bear or bear bear.
It's a very subtle difference.
Notice as well that i don't pronounce the r at the end of these words bear beer.
This is a typical feature of most british english accents.
If you do decide to pronounce the r at the end of these words, then they will sound like bear and beer, and these sound a little bit more like american english.
Now listen carefully and repeat these examples.
The bear walked slowly through the forest.
He ordered a cold beer.
Next we have bird and beard.
Notice again, we don't pronounce the Rs bird.
This is a very relaxed sound.
Don't let the spelling get in your way and confuse you here.
So it's not beard or beard.
Yeah, we're not pronouncing it as an e because then that makes it sound like the second word, beard.
Here the vowel sound is very weak and very relaxed bird bird, now with our second word, beard.
This is where you pronounce the e eared beard.
Listen and repeat.
A small bird landed on the ground.
He trimmed his beard before the interview.
Now listen very carefully to these three.
They, they're there.
They a they're with two syllables.
They're there.
There, They are meeting us at the station.
They are excited about the trip.
Now notice that I'm pronouncing the R here.
Now, this isn't because I'm trying to speak with an American accent here.
This is a linking R. So on its own, this contracted form is pronounced as . there no r at the end but to link it together to the next word in this specific case we add a They are Rick, Rickcited.
They are excited.
If you'd like to learn more about connected speech and linking sounds together in English, then I have a free playlist which you can go and check out.
I will leave it down below in the description, and the final word is there.
So of course you can say this as there air like we looked at with bear, or you can just pronounce it with one sound there their, their house is near the park.
Advice advise.
The key difference here is the ending notice.
When we talk about the noun, there's no vibration advice, advice.
However, the verb has vibration advise, advise.
She gave me great advice before the exam.
I advise you to study hard for your exam.
Loose lose.
This is the same thing that we looked at with advice and advise.
The vowel sounds are the same here.
However, the endings change.
Loose no vibration.
Lose there's vibration, so make sure you get that voicing correct.
These trousers are too loose.
Try not to lose your passport.
Or try not to lose your passport.
Desert and dessert.
This is one I see confused a lot.
Focus on the stress.
Desert desert, the stress is on the first syllable.
However dessert dessert, the stress is now on the second syllable.
And notice the change in vowels.
When we move the stress, we of course need to change the vowel sounds to make them strong and weak.
So we have desert, It's a longer vowel.
If you're ever confused about the pronunciation of these two and you confuse desert and dessert all the time A good way to remember this is by thinking that dessert usually comes towards the end of your meal, right?
And in the word dessert, the stress goes towards the end of the word.
So helps you to think of it this way.
Now listen carefully and repeat.
Mind your stress placement.
They drove through the hot desert.
We had chocolate cake for dessert.
Except except.
The difference here is very, very subtle and we only need to focus on the first vowel sound.
When we're talking about except, we use the schwa.
However, when we're talking about except, we use the sound like in emma, except except.
You may also hear this being pronounced as except.
So some people do say it with an i the miserable i sound and some people say it with the e.
So you can choose, doesn't matter.
Now listen carefully and repeat.
Mind that first vowel sound.
He accepted the job offer.
Everyone is coming except john.
Next we have father and further in british english father, the first word is pronounced exactly the same as father, as in mother and father.
So notice that we don't pronounce any of the r sounds.
A long vowel sound.
And the second word is with a more relaxed vowel sound.
Listen and repeat.
We walked farther than we planned.
We need to discuss this further.
Moral and morale Here the stress changes moral, MORAL.
So again, because we're moving the stress, the vowels are going to change just a little bit.
With the first word, we start with O. MOR and then we go into a schwa and very relaxed.
MORAL with the second word m.
Now we have the weak syllable at the start, so we're going to use a schwa m?
Ral.
Now the second syllable here is stressed.
Because it's stressed, we now need to give it a stronger vowel Morale.
Morale.
Mind that L sound as well.
Careful that you're not releasing it.
This is what we call a dark L sound.
In English we have two types of L a light L and a dark L.
The light L appears before a vowel sound like like
However, the dark L appears after a vowel sound, usually towards the end of a word like in milk, or morale and moral.
So listen carefully and repeat.
Mind the stress in those vowels.
The story had a clear moral lesson.
The team's morale is very high today.
Next we have personal and personnel.
So again the stress changes in these two words.
With the first one the stress is on the first syllable.
So we have two weak schwa sounds there.
Notice I'm not really moving my mouth.
Personal, personal now the second word, personnel.
Notice that because we put the stress at the end, now we need to change that schwa sound, so it's now a stronger syllable, a stronger vowel sound.
It becomes an like in Emma.
Listen and repeat.
That's a personal question.
The hospital personnel must wear badges.
Now because you've made it to the end of this lesson, I want to give you a little bonus.
With this bonus one, we have access and excess.
Again, this stress moves access, access.
We have this really open and wide, a sound access.
But with our second word, even though we change the first vowel to an e, like in emma, the stress moves to the second syllable excess, excess.
Again, you can also change this to an i, excess.
Depending on the accent of the person, you'll hear both.
I personally say excess with the e as in Emma.
So listen carefully and repeat.
Only staff have access to this area. or Only staff have access to this area.
He packed an excess of clothes.
And mind that final word, clothes.
Clothes.
If you find it tricky, you can remove the th and just say clothes.
Clothes.
He packed an excess of clothes.
And that is it for today's lesson.
Thank you very much for watching and I hope you've learned something new.
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If you'd like more videos to help you improve your British English pronunciation and listening skills,
Remember to download your free PDF version of today's lesson, which includes 30 of the most commonly mispronounced and confused words in English by English learners.
There's also a free podcast episode in there as well, so you can listen to all the 30 words in context with the definitions as well, of completely for free.
For free.
Go and download it.
It's there waiting for you.
The qr code is there or, if you can't scan the qr code, the link is down below in the description.
Thank you very much for watching and i will see you in the next video bye.
