A short pronunciation tutorial by Hadar Shemesh focused on the American-English pronunciation of words beginning with W followed by R (e.g., were, work, word, worm, worth, worse, world). The instructor demonstrates an anchor pronunciation for "were" (rounded lips, immediate R, no intervening vowel), then shows how adding different final consonants or clusters produces related words and offers repetition drills and practice advice.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Hadar and this is a pronunciation tip in the accents way. Many foreign speakers find very difficult to pronounce the words. Words. World. Actually, it's words that begin with a W. They have one vowel letter and then the R, er Were. Now, in this case, in all the following words that we're going to practice, all the vowel sounds are actually the same, although they might be spelled with different letters. For example, in the word were. Now this is going to be the base anchor word that we're going to use. W, E, R, E. Were. Basically, we want to feel that we're pronouncing the W by rounding our lips and going directly to the R without any vowels in the middle. Now we lift our tongue slightly for the R. Were. Were. It's not pronounced as where, as in where are you or where were you? It's pronounced as were. Look at my lips. They're still rounded throughout the entire word. Basically were. Now, if this is the anchor word, let's take that word and add a K at the end. Were. K. Were. K. Work. Work. So although it's spelled with an O in comparison to the E that is in the word were, we still hear and pronounce it the same. Work. Were. Work. Next, let's add a D at the end. Were. D. Were. D. Word. Word. Work. Word. I work on a Word document. Now, let's add an M at the end. M. Were. It's not warm. Warm like the weather. It's worm. Worm. Next we'll take the th at the end. Were. Th. And here we have the word worth. Is it worth it? Is it worth it for the worm to stay warm? Worm. Worth. Now let's take the ld consonant cluster at the end. Now here the L has to be heard and then we end it with a D. Notice that the L and the D are positioned at the same place. L. Right behind the teeth on that little bridge. When the flesh starts to. When you feel the flesh. Were. Just like the were in were and work in. World. World. World. If it sounds to you like word, then you're probably not pronouncing the L. World. Where were you? Where were you? Third World country. Third. That's the same sound. Third World Country. We were working. We were round. Your lips were working. We were working in this world. We were working in this world. Good. So keep practicing these words. And you have some more words to practice after the following video. The more you drill it, the more it becomes your nature. So you gotta do it over and over and over until you feel comfortable. You make it your own. And then when you speak, you're not going to have to think about it. It's just going to happen. So practice now. Practice. Were work. Word. Worth. Worm. Worse. World.
