That sentence uses the words “where”, “were”, and “we’re” which sometimes get confused by learners of English. Those words are all pronounced differently, and it is important to say them correctly because they are frequently used words. Some students are not sure how to pronounce them, and perhaps some of the confusion comes from the words “there”, “they’re”, and “their” which are homonyms and do sound the same.
The homonyms “there”, “they’re”, and “their” are often tricky for native speakers of English when they write – it’s easy to use the wrong spelling since they sound the same. But native speakers are not confused when they hear these words, because they expect these words to have the same sound.
However, “where”, “were”, and “we’re” do not sound the same. Native speakers’ ears expect them to sound different, so it can cause miscommunication if you don’t say them correctly.
How to pronounce them.
WHERE – In this word, the “E” sounds more like “A” because of the influence of the “R”. This word is one syllable and it is a homonym with the words “ware” and “wear”.
WERE – In this word, the “R” sound is acting as the vowel (the “E” is has no sound), and it is one syllable.
WE’RE – This is a combination of the words “we” + “are”. Even though native speakers sometimes pronounce this the same as “were”, this word will be most clear if you pronounce it as two syllables, and keep the Long-E sound of the “E” in “we”.
So now you can say: We’re where we were.
PronunciationCoach 