A short pronunciation lesson by Hadar Shemesh (Influency / Accents Way) explaining how to pronounce and distinguish the three words 'except', 'accept', and 'expect'. The host contrasts vowel and consonant differences, demonstrates connected speech reduction (schwa), gives example sentences, and ends with a call-to-action to subscribe and follow on Instagram.
Chapters
Welcome to the Influency podcast and this is your how to Pronounce Friday where I share with you the pronunciation secrets of tricky and confusing words. Hello everyone, it's Hadar. And this is the accents way you your way to finding clarity, confidence and freedom in English. Today I want to talk about the three words accept, accept and expect. I know it may be complicated at first, but bear with me, I'll get you there. Let's begin with the two words accept and accept. As you can hear, these are pretty similar. That's because the ending is absolutely the same. Sept. That's also the primary stress of the word. So the difference is in the beginning in the word except, you begin with an as in sit vowel sound and then you move to a k sound, the second syllable sept, an s sound and a p and a t Sept. In the word accept you start with the a as in cat, open mouth, pull your lips to the sides a bit, push your tongue forward and then again a k sound. Accept, accept, ick, ack, ick ack. Pretty different, right? However. And there is always a however hiding there somewhere. When you speak really quickly, the beginning of the two words may reduce to a schwa. And both words may sound the same. Except and accept. Alright, different meanings. You hear it in the context, but the pronunciation may be the same except. To our purposes, let's make the distinction between the two, except and accept. Right? That way you are not mistaken. The difference between this word and the word expect is a bit more noticeable. Alright, listen to the difference. Except expect, expect. Here the difference is in the second syllable. So it begins the same. Except the second syllable is sept. And in the word expect, the second syllable is spect. So we have that p sound in the middle. So you compare sep sept versus spect. Right? That's pretty different. Sept. And then s, close your lips for the p, open it to the vowel spe and end it with a k sound and a t Kt Expect. Except. Alright, so now let's look at all three words except. Except for me. Accept, accept your offer and expect. I expect you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Accept, accept, expect. Alright, I hope now it's a little clearer and the fog is dissolved from these three. 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. Wow.
