Hadar Shemesh breaks down how to pronounce angry, hungry, and hangry in American English. The lesson covers the g+r onset, nasal ng sounds, and vowel reduction before ng, with minimal-pair contrasts to practice.
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Welcome to the Influency podcast. I'm Hadar and this is how to Pronounce Friday, where we take a confusing word or word pair. We learn how to pronounce it and how to use it with confidence. Let's get started. Let's talk about the two words, angry and hungry. Angry and hungry. I often hear my students confuse these two words. So let's break down the differences between those two. Let's begin actually with the and gri. We start with a g sound and then we move to an R. Lift the tongue up round your lips. Gr gr. And then open it to an E as in C gree. The beginning is different in the word angry as I'm angry at you. The vowel at the beginning is basically an A as in cat sound. And then we move to an ng sound. But in American English, when the A as in cat appears before an ng sound, it reduces to an a sound. Angry. Angry. Alright, so again, long a getting to an ng sound. The tongue goes up in the back and the air is coming out through the nose. Angry. And then a gri sound. Angry. The word hungry is different here we begin with an H sound. Alright, it's like I'm whispering. And then it's a reduced sound. Huh? Huh? It's like a schwa. Hungry. Hungry. You hear the difference? Angry. Hungry. If I reduce the H in the word hungry, it's going to sound like this. Listen. Angry. Hungry. Pretty similar, right? So we want to distinguish the two. Therefore the H sound is pretty important. So again, just release air before the word hungry. It's like the h in the word hi, right? You don't say hi, how are you? You say hi, how are you? So you say hungry and angry. I'm pretty hungry right now. I'm angry at you. Good. Now, did you know that there is a new word in American English and it is hangry. Hangry. It's actually combination of the two words, angry and hungry. And do you know what it means? I bet you do. Because it's a very valid feeling that you feel when you're angry because you're hungry. And that's what I feel right now. So I'm gonna go and eat something and you are going to subscribe to my YouTube channel in the meantime. And that's it. Okay. That was your how to Pronounce Friday episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you like the podc, 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 how to pronounce. Have a beautiful day, and I'll see you next time, Sam.
