Spelled the SAME Pronounced DIFFERENTLY Correct English Pronunciation
Hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
Today’s pronunciation lesson is all about
some extremely common English words, like this word
and actually this word, like all the others that I’m gonna
share today has more than just one meaning.
It can be more than one type of word.
It can be a verb and a noun so of course,
a verb and a noun, the meaning is different
and interestingly, the pronunciation is different.
I mean which really is quite annoying
but we’re going to take a look at some of these different
words and learn some cool tricks so that you know
how to pronounce them correctly
so you ready to dive in?
So let’s start nice and simple with this word.
Now there’s actually two ways to pronounce this word.
Do you know them? Do you know them already?
We have tear.
And tear.
Can you hear the different vowel sounds
that I’m using in each word?
But now I want you to try saying it out loud and I want
you to listen to make sure that there’s a difference
in the vowel sounds that you’re using.
Nice! I always like to remember that a tear
comes down near your ear
and you know when you hold something up to tear it
you’re holding it up in the air right.
A little reminder there.
So practise with me.
A tear rolled down his cheek as he saw his dad
tear up his favourite book.
Your turn.
Nice! Now there are some clues in this sentence
that help us to know which word is a noun
and which one is a verb.
So articles are always in front of nouns
and when we have a subject, dad,
and an object, our favourite book,
we know that this must be a verb right?
We need it to complete the clause in the sentence.
So I want you to keep looking for these clues as we go
through this lesson okay
keep looking for the types of words in each sentence
as a clue for how to pronounce them.
So as a noun this is a type of bird, right and it’s
pronounced dove.
Dove. It’s that short vowel sound.
But this word is also a verb.
It’s the past tense of ‘dive’.
And that’s a diphthong vowel sound, the
sound. It’s the same sound that you hear in ‘go’ and ‘no’.
He dove into the pool.
So let’s see if we can put those two words
together in a sentence, might be a little tricky.
Miraculously, the dove
dove into the river to escape the cat.
Your turn.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen a dove
dive into a river but there you go,
that’s what practice at mmmEnglish is all about.
So how about this one?
Do you know the different ways to pronounce this word?
I think you probably know the verb, to lead right?
And you really need to try and make that long
vowel sound there.
Make that sound too short, it’ll sound like lid.
Now there are quite a few different uses for this verb
so I’m gonna give you a few different examples.
You lead the way!
Last time I checked, the green team was
leading the race.
And I asked Sarah to lead this project for us.
So the verb form is probably the most common way
that you’ll come across it right?
You’ll hear it pronounced lead often.
But lead is also a metal. It’s a noun.
And so when it’s used this way the pronunciation is led.
And it used to be really commonly used in pipes
and construction until people started realising
that it was actually poisoning us.
And it’s also the dark part inside a pencil.
That’s also called lead, a lead pencil.
An exposure to lead can lead to serious
health problems.
He was asked to lead the children off the stage.
Now one of the trickiest things here is trying to work out
when to pronounce it as a verb
and when to pronounce it as a noun.
So usually we look at the words around it
to give us a clue, to try and work out
what type of word it is.
But look here, we’ve got the preposition to
coming before lead or lead in both examples.
We have exposed to lead.
And he was asked to lead.
So it’s not always as simple as it seems.
Now this one I know you know.
What are the two different ways to pronounce this word
and it’s got nothing to do with the vowel sound.
It’s actually the consonant sound, close.
That voiced consonant sound.
You know this is when we, you know, close a door or
we close the shop early.
But it can also be an adjective as well
and when it’s an adjective, we pronounce it as close
to say that something is nearby or a short distance
away. It’s close
and this is the unvoiced sound, exactly the same mouth
and tongue position as the sound but
it’s made with air pushing through our mouths.
Can you please close the door?
Sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it
because it’s not the right word.
Although you live close by, you still need to
close the front door and lock up before you leave.
So we’re getting a little trickier now. Do you know the
two different ways to pronounce this word?
As a noun, this is an injury
right especially when you cut your skin
so it can be quite
serious right? And it’s
pronounced wound with that long sound.
And this is the same sound that’s used in the adjective
wounded.
So we would say
the soldier was wounded on the battlefield.
But this is also a verb,
it’s the past tense of wind, wound.
Again it’s that diphthong sound.
And it’s the same sound that you hear in words like
flower and frown.
So it’s wound.
He had wound up the window just as it started to rain.
Now let’s put them together in a sentence.
Sam wound the belt tightly around his leg to stop
the blood flowing from the open wound.
So first things first, we are not talking about this right?
At least we know these are different words because
they’re spelt differently
but did you know that this word can actually be a verb
and a noun
and the pronunciation is different when we’re using
each type of word and it’s all in the syllable stress.
We have desert.
This is, you know, an area of land that doesn’t
have a lot of water. Then we’ve got the verb desert.
Exactly like dessert right but it means to leave
someone alone and to
abandon them in the middle of nowhere.
I’m not going to desert you in the middle of the desert.
So again we’ve got a noun and a verb to consider here.
An object, object is a thing, right?
The stress is on the first syllable but the verb object
means to be opposed to something you know,
using words and it’s quite a formal verb.
Will you object if I move the object from the table?
That is a really random sentence.
So just to mix things up a little bit here, this word
can be a noun and an adjective.
So the noun content is a really generic word.
It’s not very specific and you’re probably most familiar
with it in the context of social media. It means
any material or piece of writing or video or music
that appears on a website, on Youtube,
or on social media somewhere. This is called content.
I produce a lot of content on YouTube!
Now if you are happy and satisfied with life,
then you are content.
The very best way to be.
So when it’s used as an adjective, the syllable stress
shifts to the second syllable and the first syllable
reduces right down so the vowel sound becomes
a schwa.
So listen to the difference between those two words.
Are you content with the amount of content
that you post on social media?
So tell me how do we pronounce this word here?
Because we can use it as an adjective
to say that two things are not together
then we say separate.
Keep the cheese separate from the meat.
And usually you just hear it pronounced with
two syllables separate.
But as a verb, separate,
we hear three syllables right and it means to
put things in groups so
can you separate the red apples from the green ones?
Separate.
So let’s compare them together.
Practise out loud with me.
Now even though these are different types of words,
they do have a really similar meaning
so we can compare them together.
I try to separate my work life from my home life.
I try to keep my work life separate from my home life.
Okay we’re going to end on a tricky one.
I’m wondering if you’ve ever heard this word before
and if you know how to pronounce it
but it actually follows a really similar pattern to
the previous word, right?
As an adjective, we say deliberate
meaning that an action was fully intended or it was
carefully considered. It wasn’t done by accident.
He made a deliberate attempt to embarrass me
in front of my boss.
Now as a verb, the pronunciation changes to deliberate.
So we’ve got four syllables.
The second is the strongest
and the fourth is also strong.
So to deliberate is to think really carefully about
something and to consider all the different options
So again the word types are different
but the meaning is quite similar.
So deliberate means that something is carefully
considered and to deliberate means that
well the verb is to carefully consider, right?
We don’t need to deliberate over how deliberate
his actions were.
So there you have it! I hope that this lesson highlighted
how important pronunciation is, especially
vowel sounds in English.
Often they’re the only thing that separates one word
from another. Now before we finish up, I want to quickly
go over the pronunciation of all these words again
so get ready to say them out loud with me.
Awesome work everyone!
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