Hadar Shemesh breaks down three easily confused words: costume (stress on second syllable, long oo sound), custom (stress on first syllable, both schwa-like), and customs (same as custom but ends with z). Learn when to use each one.
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Welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar and this is episode 106. And today we're going to talk about how to pronounce the words costume, custom, and customs.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me again for another episode. Today I want to discuss these three words and it's a good day to discuss discuss those words because today in Israel or in the Jewish religion, we celebrate Purim. Now, I use we as a collective, but I do not celebrate it. I have to because of my daughters. But if there is one thing that I don't like in life is costumes, I never liked it and I don't think I ever will. And now that I'm a mother, it's even more annoying because I have to find two different costumes. And every time they want something fancy and I never get it ready on time and it's always very stressful and they get stressed out about it. Geez, I wonder why. Maybe because their mom is not so excited about it. Anyway, that's my costume story, I'm sure, and I hope yours is a little different. But it's important that we know how to pronounce this word because it's very similar to another word that means a totally different thing, customs or custom. I guess costumes is a custom, so it's good to discuss both together and not to confuse them. So what are we waiting for? Let's listen. Now.
Let's begin with costume. Costume is the outfit you wear for Halloween or Purim, if you are Jewish. It's when you dress up, okay, as something. So a costume is pronounced with a k sound and then it's the ah as in father ca. And then there is an s Koss kaas. The second syllable is tum.
A T sound, the U as in.
Food and an m to. You can also say tum with a sound right before the u. So it's either costume or costume. Both are. Okay, so that's costume. Then we have custom. Custom is behavior or things that you do that are very specific to a place or a society. So for example, singing Christmas carols during Christmas is a custom. We also use it in custom made. So when something is tailored into the specific needs of an individual or custom settings, when you are changing the basic settings of a system to fit to your needs to accommodate your needs. Okay, so that's custom. It's also the root of the word customer. Okay, to pronounce the word custom and customer, you start with a cup sound, kus.
Right?
So it's Very similar to costume. But here it's not the ah as in father. So it's not kos. It's cus. Kus. A cup sound is like a stressed schwa. The jaw is relaxed, the tongue is relaxed, and the lips are not rounded at all. Cus. Cus. The second syllable is. It's a T sound, a schwa and an m. Tim. So the first word has tum. It's a long oo sound. And this word has a schwa. The cup sound and the schwa are very, very similar. You can even say it's the same sound, only that the first syllable is stressed. Custom. And if you want to add the er at the end, Customer. That's just another schwa with an R. Customer. Costume. Custom. Customer. The third word is customs. Customs is an authority or agency in a country that is responsible for the flow of goods into and outside of the country. So you all know this when you.
Are walking out of the airport, you're.
Walking out of the plane, and you just want to get into a cab and explore the city. But then you have customs, and you have to think if you have something to declare or not. I always freak out, although I never have something to declare, but I'm afraid that someone is going to catch me and start searching my bags. Yeah. So that's customs. I'm sure you all know what it is now that I've described this experience. So customs is basically the word custom with an S. Okay, so same exact pronunciation. Cus. A cup sound. Cus. And then tim with a schwa. Custom. And then the S is pronounced as a Z. Customs. The fact that there is an s here doesn't mean it's plural.
Okay.
It's not the plural form, actually. Customs is the singular form. The plural form of customs, and I had to look it up, is customs. Duties with an s. So it not custom.
Duty.
Custom. Duties. So that's the plural form. Okay, so to conclude, the first word is costume, as. And father. Drop your jaw, relax your lips. Costume. And then long oo as in food. Think like there is an extra W there. Costume. Then we have custom. Don't drop your jaw, close your mouth, relax your lips. Custom. And lastly, customs with a Z. Okay, that's it. Now, do you have an interesting story or an interesting customs experience, if it was frightening or funny? I love custom stories. I have a ton of them to tell you about.
Okay, that was your how to Pronounce Friday episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you like the podcast, then consider subscribing to the podcast and if you feel really crazy, you can even rate and review the podcast. And you can find me at Hadar Accentsway on Instagram where you can DM me and ask for all the crazy, fancy, confusing words that you'd like to know and how to pronounce. Have a beautiful day and I'll see you next time.
