Hadar Shemesh breaks down how to pronounce "clothes." The word starts with a k sound and heavy L, has a long O vowel, and ends with th, not the z sound in "close." She explains mouth and tongue positioning to get it right.
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.
The word clothes. It's a great word because I have a fantastic tip for you guys that will make the pronunciation of this word really simple. The beginning of the word starts with clo. Clo. It's a K sound. Shifting to an L. The tongue goes up to touch the upper palate. Cool. The tongue is heavy here. It's a heavy L. Cool. And then a long O, O, O as in go clo. Clothes. All right, so you start with your mouth open and you close it to an oo. Clothes. So it's not clause, all right? You don't want to pronounce it just like a sound. It's clothes. Think like you're adding a little w at the end. The end of the word is a th sound. Clothes. Now, if you tried making it with me now, you probably feel that it's a little challenging, right? The tongue gets stuck, and then it's hard to show from the tongue bang out to the Z sound. True. It is a difficult transition. That's why you can drop the th, and instead of saying clothes, you can say close. Close. Just like close the door. Close. So even Americans reduce this word to close because it's definitely easier and quicker to pronounce clothes. Now, let me say one word about this. The word close. Make sure that you don't confuse that with the word close. All right, you have two words here with the same spelling pattern. Close the door. The verb. And also the way to say the word clothes when it's reduced. Close. And then you have close, the adverb. I'm sitting close to you. Close. I'm sitting close. Close. Close the door. Or clothes. I'm wearing new clothes. Clothes.
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 how to pronounce. Have a beautiful day, and I'll see you next time.
