This or These?

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“Do you mean 1 or more than 1?”

Have you ever been asked a question like that after trying to say something with the word “this” or “these”? If so, you’re not alone. It can be hard to clearly pronounce these two words.

The primary difference between “this” and “these” is the vowel sound, and that’s the tricky part.

The word “this” uses the Short-i sound, and “these” uses the Long-E sound. These two sounds are very similar, but there is one key difference that many students of English do not know about. The key is tongue tension. Long-E and Short-i use basically the same tongue position, but for Long-E the tongue (which is a muscle) is tense, and for Short-i the tongue is relaxed.

Here is how I coach students:
Say “E”, then keeping your tongue in the same place, relax it: “E” > “i”

There are actually quite a few words that can be confused because of these two vowel sounds. Here are a few examples:
beat – bit
cheap – chip
deed – did
each – itch
eat – it
ease – is
feel – fill
heat – hit
he’s – his
leap – lip
leaving – living
steal/steel – still
seat – sit
seek – sick
wheel/we’ll – will

Even if a word with Short-i does not have a similar word with Long-E, it can make it hard to understand if you do not relax your tongue. I recently heard a U.S. medical doctor (who was not born in the U.S.) in a TV news interview say “…this is the beegest breakthrough in cardiology…” Even though this doctor spoke English quite well, his vowel error stood out. He was trying to say “biggest” but his tongue was not relaxed for Short-i, so it sounded like “beegest”.

Back to “this” and “these”. The second difference between these two words is the “S”. In “these” the “S” should sound like “Z”.

So that’s the difference between “this” and “these”!

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Good news!! This topic has been updated and expanded!

  • It is also available on my Patreon page, where there is even MORE additional information along with additional practice exercises with audio.

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The Sound of R

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The American English R-sound is different from the R-sound of most languages in the world. Many students of English feel that it is more like a vowel than a consonant, and there is good reason for this. R is different from the other consonants of English because there is no point of contact – the tip of the tongue does touch the top of the mouth. The tongue is actually used in a vowel-like way to produce the R-sound.

How to make the R-sound

Different native speakers seem to make the R-sound in slightly different ways, so you may see different kinds of explanations in different ESL or pronunciation books. However, there are a few basic features that are always the same:
1. R is more similar to pronouncing a vowel than a consonant.
2. The tip of the tongue should NOT touch the roof of the mouth.
3. There is a lot of tension in the tongue.
4. The lips are slightly rounded.

So, here is how I coach students to make the R-sound:

Step 1. The tongue should start out low in the mouth, like saying “ah”
Step 2. While keeping the tongue down, pull the front part of the tongue back a bit. The tongue should be quite tense, tightly contracted. (But try to keep your jaw relaxed!)
Step 3. Also round the lips a little bit – about half as much as for the O-sound.

Some other points:
If the sides of your tongue touch the back upper teeth – that’s ok.
Or, if the tip of your tongue seems to be turned back – that’s also ok.

Have fun with R!

The Power of R

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R is an unusual letter. Normally it is a consonant. Sometimes it acts as a vowel. But something even more amazing is that it sometimes has the power to change the sound of a vowel in front of it.

R AS A CONSONANT

In words such as “run”, “carrot” or “free” R is a consonant.

R AS A VOWEL

In some words, the R takes the place of the vowel. That is, the vowel before the R becomes silent, because the R dominates — it takes away, or covers up the vowel sound.

Here are some examples: earth, chirp, curve, govern, her, iceberg, term, third, shirt, surf, verse, work, worst. This is a short list of examples — there are quite a few words like this.

The loss of the vowel sound also happens with -er and -or at the ends of words, as in “other” and “actor”.

R POWER

R can sometimes change the sound of a vowel, instead of covering it up.

A changing to O
This happens when an “a” is trapped between a “w” or “u” and an “r”. For example, the word “war” sounds like the word “wore” — they are homonyms. “Warn” and “worn” are also homonyms. However, “warm” and “worm” do not sound the same, because “worm” has R as a vowel.

Other words in which the “a” sounds like “o” are: award, dwarf, quart, quarter, quartz, thwart, ward, warm, warp, wart, wharf.

Why does this happen? The “w” or “u” sound and the American “r” sound are all made with rounded lips. So an “a” trapped between these sounds also gets pronounced with rounded lips — native speakers don’t unround their lips just for the “a” in between. An “a” with rounded lips ends up sounding like “o”.

E changing to A
This happens in a few words that have an “e” before an “r”. To make an “r” sound, the tongue needs to be very tense, and this tension affects the “e”, making it sound more like an “a”.

Here are some common words:
there
where (this is a homonym with “ware”)
merry (this is a homonym with “marry”)
very (this is a homonym with “vary”)

So, two good things to keep in mind when dealing with R are: First, don’t be surprised if you find some words that are pronounced with an unexpected vowel sound when R follows. Second, listen closely when R is involved, so that you can hear how to pronounce those words correctly.

The Most Frequently Used Words

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It is a good idea to check yourself to make sure that you are saying the most frequently used words correctly because many of them are needed every time you speak in English, and the most frequently used words of English have the highest percentage of irregular spelling patterns, so if you learned to say them by looking at the letters, you may be saying some of them wrong! Or perhaps, when you first learned some of these words, you did not know how to say them correctly, and now you have a habit of saying some of them incorrectly.

Here is a list of the 150 most frequent words: MostFrequentWordsEnglish150

Here are some ideas for different ways you can use the list with the audio files to check yourself and practice these words:

  • listen to the audio files before you look at the list, write down the words as you hear them, then look at the list to check yourself.
  • pause the audio after each word and say the next word aloud before you hear it, to see if you think you said it correctly.
  • listen and repeat each word, trying imitate the pronunciation on the audio, to see if it is different from the way you are accustomed to saying the word.
  • record yourself and then compare your recording to these audio files.

Words 1-50
Words 51-100
Words 101-150

What are homonyms?

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The English language has hundreds of homonyms. These homonyms can be confusing if you don’t know about them!

So, what does homonym mean?
Homonym means different words that have the same sound, but they have different spellings and different meanings. (Technically these are actually homophones – but the word homonym is commonly used, and the word that most people are familiar with.)

The words in each of these homonym groups have the same pronunciation!

aisle / I’ll / isle
allowed / aloud
ate / eight
billed / build
board / bored
brake / break
buy / by / bye
capital / capitol
carrot / karat / caret
ceiling / sealing
cent / scent / sent
cereal / serial
chews / choose
cite / sight / site
currant /current
dew / do / due
find / fined
finish / Finnish
fir / fur
flour / flower
for / fore / four
gene / jean
gorilla / guerrilla
groan / grown
he’ll / heal / heel
heard / herd		 hour / our
knows / nose
meat / meet / mete
morning / mourning
one / won
pair / pare / pear
peace / piece
plain / plane
principle /principal
rain / reign / rein
recede / reseed
right / rite / write
road / rode / rowed
sea / see
sew / so / sow
side / sighed
son / sun
stair / stare
teas /tease / tees
their / there / they’re
to / too / two
wait / weight
war / wore
way / weigh / whey
weather / whether
who’s / whose

This is only a very short list of examples. There are hundreds of homonym sets in English.

So, does that mean that English speakers often get confused by homonyms? Not at all! Homonyms do not usually cause communication problems between native speakers of English, because they instinctively hear the word that fits with the topic of the conversation. In fact, most of the time, native speakers of English are not even aware of the homonyms that they use.

Every now and then, there may be a moment of misunderstanding caused by a homonym. For example, if someone says “I would like a pair” (2 of something), but the other person thinks they said “I would like a pear” (the fruit). However, this is generally clarified quickly and easily, by saying something like “Oh, I mean I want 2, not a fruit!”

For students of English, the most important thing to realize is that homonyms DO sound the same and should be pronounced the same. You should not try to make them sound different. That could actually cause misunderstandings.

By the way, sometimes homonyms are used for making jokes. Here’s a joke that uses the homonyms red/read:

Question: “What’s black and white and red all over?”
Answer: “The newspaper”

The newspaper is something that people everywhere read, so the question is actually asking “What’s black and white and read all over?” The words “black and white” make you think of the color red rather than the verb to read, which is why the answer comes as a surprise.

-ate Part 3: Watch out for hidden -ate

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If you have already read Part 1 & Part 2 about –ate, then you already know that you should not put stress on the –ate ending. The tricky part is that sometimes the –ate is not at the end of a word — it may be hidden by a suffix added after it. But even when it is hidden, you still need to follow the rule of not stressing it.

In the following examples, the –ate is not at the end of the new words, but the stress is still controlled by the –ate, which means that the stress falls 2 syllables before it.

elevate + or = elevator (don’t say: eleVAtor)
complicate + ed = complicated (not: compliCAted)
evaporate + ing = evaporating
accurate + ness = accurateness
deliberate + ly = deliberately

But watch out! There are other suffixes which do control stress, and overrule the –ate rule. The most common is –tion. This suffix moves the stress to the syllable just before itself. So, the word educate + tion = education, and evaporate + tion = evaporation. This -tion pattern makes it seem like the -ate is taking the stress.

-ate Part 2: How does it sound?

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Graduate, or, graduate… Which is the correct pronunciation? Actually, both are right!

The other important thing to know about words with –ate is that the “A” uses two different sounds. The good news is that this is a clear and predictable pattern.

The letter “A” sounds like Long-A (or the name of the letter “A”) in Verbs, but it sounds like the reduced vowel or “schwa” in Nouns and Adjectives.

Here are some examples:
Verbs: calculate / originate / pollinate / refrigerate /
Nouns & Adjectives: certificate / electorate / proportionate / vertebrate /

However, there are quite a few –ate words that can be used as both a Verb AND as a Noun or Adjective. For example:
alternate (Adj & N) / alternate (V)
associate (Adj & N) / associate (V)
coordinate (N) / coordinate (V)
duplicate (N) / duplicate (V)
estimate (N) / estimate (V)
graduate (Adj & N) / graduate (V)
moderate (Adj) / moderate (V)
separate (Adj) / separate (V)

But don’t forget, whether the word is a Noun, Adjective or Verb, the stress always goes two syllables before the –ate ending, not on it.

Finally, as usual, there is always a word or two that doesn’t follow the rule. In this case, I have found a few: concentrate / primate / mandate / inmate / rebate. In these nouns, the “A” sounds like Long-A rather than a schwa sound.

-ate Part 1: Don’t Stress It!

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A very common problem for learners of English is incorrect word stress in words that end with –ate. In fact, almost every student I have worked with has had difficulty with this. Almost everybody makes the mistake of putting the stress on the –ate ending.

HERE’S THE RULE: Do not put stress on –ate. Put it two syllables before that ending.

So, the 3-Syllable word “celebrate” has stress on the 1st syllable (not the last): CElebrate, not celeBRATE. And the 4-Syllable word “eliminate” has stress on the 2nd syllable: eLIminate, not elimiNATE

Here are some more examples:

3-Syllable words
accurate / delicate / demonstrate / fabricate / fluctuate / isolate / moderate / populate / separate / tolerate / vertebrate / violate /

4-Syllable words
approximate / certificate / communicate / deliberate / elaborate / evaporate / incorporate / infuriate / investigate / negotiate / refrigerate / subordinate /

There are hundreds of 3 & 4-Syllable words that end with –ate, but only just a few do not follow the rule, for example: elongate / interrelate / oxygenate / reinstate / relocate /

5 & 6-Syllable words
There are a few 5 & 6-Syllable words with -ate, and they also follow the same rule:
decontaminate / differentiate / hyperventilate / intermediate / rehabilitate / intercommunicate /

So, with only just a small number of words that do not follow the rule, it means that virtually every time you see a new word with –ate, you can confidently predict the stress.

What about 2-Syllable words?
Most 2-Syllable words that end with –ate have stress on the 1st syllable. Here are just a few (of many) examples: agate / climate / dictate / donate / frustrate / hydrate / inmate / locate / magnate / mandate / migrate / narrate / notate / primate / private / rebate / rotate / senate / translate / vibrate /

However, some 2-Syllable words do have stress on the –ate, such as: create / debate / deflate / elate / equate / estate / inflate / innate / irate / negate / ornate / relate / sedate. Some of these words are used fairly frequently, and perhaps this pattern influences learners of English to follow a similar stress pattern for all other words with –ate.

Now that you know the stress pattern, did you notice something else about –ate endings? Sometimes the “A” sounds like “A” and sometimes it sounds like the reduced vowel sound known as “schwa”. This difference is explained in –ate Part 2.

Syllables: An Introduction

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What does syllable mean?
Syllables are the parts or segments of words. For example, the word “baby” is pronounced with 2 parts: [ ba ~ by ].

Some more examples:
“dog” has 1 syllable [ dog ]
“paper” has 2 syllables [ pa ~ per ]
“animal” has 3 syllables [ a ~ ni ~ mal ]
“communicate” has 4 syllables [ com ~ mu ~ ni ~ cate ]
“pronunciation” has 5 syllables [ pro ~ nun ~ ci ~ a ~ tion ]

SOME BASIC RULES FOR ENGLISH SYLLABLES:

1. The center or nucleus of each syllable is a vowel, and English syllables can have one or more consonants before or after the vowel nucleus.
Each of these words has one syllable: I / we / an / rap / trap / traps / straps

2. The number of syllables in a word is not related to the number of letters.

a. Some syllables are very small, and can be just a single vowel sound. For example, the word “idea” has 3 different syllables: [ i ~ de ~ a ].

b. Some syllables have rather large combinations of sounds. Each of these words has just ONE syllable: “sounds”, “strengths”, “solved”, “trapped”, “verbs”. All of the letters need to be articulated all together in one syllable. (Putting so many sounds together into the same syllable, is difficult for some students.)

3. The number of spoken syllables does not always match the written form of the word. Most words have the same number of syllables in speaking and writing, but a few are different.

Example 1: The word “prism” must be spoken by pronouncing two syllables, but some dictionaries may show only one syllable, because this word would never be separated into two parts in writing.

Example 2: A few words, such as “business” and “different”, have a missing vowel in the middle. These two words look like they have 3 syllables, but when spoken, we normally hear just 2. The vowel in the middle gets skipped.