The MOST Confusing English Mistake Did you say CAN CANT or

[Music]

hello everyone and welcome back to

english with lucy today we are going to

be looking at

some really confusing words words that

are pronounced

in very similar ways words that if you

mispronounce them

you could say one of the worst swear

words or curse words

in the english language there’s a lot to

talk about today but don’t worry i’m

here to help you

before we get started i would like to

thank the sponsor of today’s video it is

lingoda

europe’s number one trusted language

school with their language

marathon you can take the marathon in

english

business english french german and

spanish

and gain up to 400 euros in cashback

when you attend at least 90 of your

lessons

there are three different marathons to

choose from

the quarter marathon the half marathon

and the full marathon

three months six months and 12 months

respectively

the personal cash back prize just adds

that extra

push of motivation to keep you attending

your lessons

with the full marathon the 12 month

marathon

you can progress up to four language

levels

i’m really happy to share this

opportunity with you because i have

first-hand

experience of how effective the lingoda

language challenges can be

they’ve transformed many of my students

lives

they love lingoda because they can

interact in small groups

with amazing qualified teachers i

actually secretly joined one of

lingoda’s

student facebook groups to see how

everyone was getting on and i was blown

away by the amount of students

celebrating

their fluency transformations and their

cash back refunds as well

so don’t sweat about your language

skills this summer

take the lingoda language marathon and

transform your fluency in just

3 6 or 12 months one more thing

the first 50 of my students and it is

limited to 50

to sign up with my code lucy summer will

get

a 30 extra discount on their first

paid month hurry up and click on the

link down below and use the code lucy

summer to claim that offer

remember there is also the option to

take the seven day free trial

and gain three classes completely for

free

let’s get started with those confusing

words

remember as always i have created a free

pdf that goes along with this lesson

if you want to get that just click on

the link in the description box

enter your name and your email address

and then you sign up for my mailing list

you get all my offers plus free pdfs

every week

firstly let’s look at can

and can’t now these can be really

confusing words

not only in the british pronunciation

the various forms of british

pronunciation

but in american english it gets even

more complicated so we’re going to talk

about

all of that today firstly let’s talk

about strong

and weak forms so with the word can

we have can with the ah sound

but we also have with the schwa sound

and this is a weak form

weak forms are syllable sounds that

become unstressed

in connected speech and they’re often

pronounced as the schwa

take a look at this sentence when i’m

speaking naturally

i would say i can do what i can so the

first can is a weak form

and the last one is an important word so

it’s

can the first can is in its weak form

and the second one is stressed so it’s

in its strong form

can can i can do what i can

this works for other words as well like

do what do you want to do

what do you want to do the first is

unstressed the second is stressed

now let’s take a look at can versus

can’t

with rp pronunciation my pronunciation

ah can ah

can’t ah is a really short and

wide sound ah ah

with can’t we have a different mouth

shape

and it’s a lot longer

do i look silly good because that’s how

i meant to look when i’m teaching

pronunciation

can

now let’s talk about a swear word i

don’t normally

talk about swear words on my channel in

american english they refer to them as

curse words

but there is a vowel sound it is very

similar to the

r sound if you use that in

can’t it makes a really bad word

the vowel sound is uh uh

so we’ve got r can’t

and uh i’m not going to say it on this

channel it’s a really vulgar word but if

you would like

to search it and hear it for yourself

then just replace the

a in can’t with a u and i’m sure

some robot dictionary will tell you

exactly what it sounds like

just be really mindful ah is short and

that’s the bad version

ah can’t that’s longer and that’s the

fine version

now something to notice with the

pronunciation of can’t

is that sometimes we don’t release that

final t

instead of saying can’t we might say

can’t

i can’t do it not i can’t do it

i can’t do it i can’t do it

i can do it i can’t do it i can do it

i can’t do it so you can’t always rely

on hearing that t

to know if somebody is saying can or

can’t

now this is where it gets complicated

because in american english

they use a very similar vowel sound

for can and can’t and they also

avoid releasing that tea at the end

so can in american english and you must

excuse

my terrible accent is can

can but can’t in american english

is can’t can’t

now if they don’t release that t then

they sound very similar

can can can

can okay brace yourself for this accent

i can try

i can try now i spoke to a couple of my

friends from the us

and they assured me that they can hear

the difference because

when they say can’t can’t they make the

vowel sound

much more abrupt can

can can can’t

so i hope you now feel confident in

pronouncing

can and can’t and avoiding pronouncing

that bad word unless you want to

pronounce it which is

fine by me just not on my channel and i

hope you now have a better idea about

the differences between can

and can’t in american english now let’s

talk about some more

pairs of words that even i find tricky

and i

really have to clarify exactly what i’m

saying especially when i’m talking on

the phone

this is the difference between teen and

t 14 40.

if i say i want 14 coffees please they

might say is that 14

or 14. so don’t worry if you mix them up

native speakers get confused with it all

the time it’s actually very

it’s very annoying that those words are

so similar but

in general speech there are differences

between them

take a look at the phonetic

transcriptions of these two words let’s

go on to

16 and 60. we have 16

and 60. you can see that in the teens

the stress is on the second syllable

but for the t’s the stress is on the

first syllable

16 60. fourteen

forty fifteen fifty

seventeen seventy eighteen

eighty nineteen

90 20 20

just joking with that last one i hope

you didn’t write that down

if so rub it out

so if you want to be really clear

especially when speaking over the phone

when you can’t lip read or really

hear too well make sure you really

over accentuate the stress of the word

you’re trying to use i said

60 not 16.

i’m going to do a really quick quiz for

you right now just to make sure you

understand the differences

write your answers in the comment

section down below

and then i’ll start correcting the first

ones i see you’ve got to tell me whether

i’m saying

teen or tea okay number one

60 people came to the game last night

i got my dog when i was 17.

i’ve been with my husband for 17 years

and the last one i’m only having 18

people

at the wedding i’m only having 80 people

at the wedding

right that is it for today’s lesson i

hope you enjoyed it

and i hope you learned something i hope

i clarified some of your doubts

don’t forget to check out lingoda with

their language marathon

all the information is in the

description box and remember that the

first

50 of my students to click on the link

in the description box and use my

code lucy summer will get a further 30

of their first paid month don’t forget

to download the pdf for today’s lesson

just click on the link in the

description box

enter your name and your email address

you then sign up to my mailing list i’ll

send the pdf directly to your inbox and

then every week after that you’ll get

all of my free pdfs

plus all of my news updates and offers

don’t forget to connect with me on

social media i’ve got my instagram

lucy and my website

englishwithlucy.co.uk or i’ve got a

really cool pronunciation tool you can

test out

pressing all of the phonemes and hearing

me say those phonemes and say words

containing those phonemes it’s

great fun e

no air and i’ve also got my vlogging

channel if you want to practice your

vocabulary and improve your listening

skills

all of my vlogs are fully subtitled and

they document my life here

in the english countryside i will see

you soon for another lesson

[Music]

there’s a lot to talk about today with

the full marathon the one-year marathon

schwa sound and this is a weak form

sorry that was my tummy

phoneme

[Music]

[Music]

you