Hadar Shemesh breaks down how to say luxury correctly. Most people devoice the middle sound to 'sh', but it should be a voiced 'zh' like in vision. Feel your vocal cords vibrate to hear the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants.
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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. Slava Mir asked me to explain how to pronounce the word luxury. Luxury. Now, here's a perfect example where spelling and pronunciation do not correspond because you're used to probably associating the letter X with as in the word extra, right? You hear a K and a S sound. And here the X in the word luxury stands for. All right, what's the connection? I have no idea, but that's just how it is. So let's break down the different sounds in this word. So we begin with an L sound. The tongue goes up to pronounce the L, right? It's a bit of a longer sound, and then it's the as in cup. Just like the word L, right? The beginning is the same L, but then you shift to a G in the back L, G and bring the tongue back up to as in vision. The sound, by the way, is the voiced pair of sh. Listen, Sh. Do you hear the difference? So if you find yourself saying luxury, luxury, I know that Spanish speakers may do that and some Hindi speakers may do that. Just devoice the sound, and then it sounds like sh, as in the word shame. All right? It's not the same sound. So you want to activate your vocal cords. Now, how do you activate your vocal cords? Put your hands here for a sec and do an F sound. And now a V. Do it again. All right, so you. You probably felt the vibrations here in your throat. That's a vocal cords vibrating. So for the F sound, you just release air. And for the V sound, you release air with sound. And you haven't changed anything here. Same thing with the. And for the sound, the tongue is up and the air comes out, and it's just air. And if you put your hands here and activate your vocal cords like you do for the V, you feel the vibrations, and then what comes out is this sound, as in the word luxury or vision. All right, so let's try it again. Lug J. After the sound, there's a schwa. Then you bring the tongue up for the R round your lips R, and then it's the E as in C Re Luxury. Luxury. All right, so it shouldn't sound like luxury. Luxury. With a K and a sh. It's voiced luxury. All right. 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. Sam.
