A short, informal YouTube lesson by Hadar Shemesh presenting 10 English words that commonly have two acceptable pronunciations. The host names each word and demonstrates both pronunciations, noting when differences correlate with region (American vs. British), part of speech (noun vs. verb), or personal/idiomatic variation. Words covered include adult, envelope, gif, address, data, root/route, either, neither, pecan, leisure, and often.
Chapters
Data or data. Root or route. Often or often. Hey, everyone, it's Hadar. We are all very familiar with videos correcting certain pronunciations or telling you how a certain pronunciation is not correct. However, there are some cases where someone might say, oh, this is not how you say it. Whereas you can get back to them and say, actually it is because there are certain words that have two valid, acceptable pronunciations. And today we're going to talk about 10 words that have two different pronunciations that you might see people fighting over. Now, the different pronunciations could be pronounced when it's a native speaker and a non native speaker, when it's an American speaker versus a British speaker or. Or even when it's two different people from the US or the UK with two different pronunciations. And that is because this is what they heard growing up. So today we're going to talk about 10 controversial pronunciations. Let's go. All right, so let's start with this word. How would you pronounce it? The first pronunciation is adult. Adult. The stress is on the first syllable, adult. The second pronunciation is adult. Stress is on the second syllable, adult. Adult. How would you say this word? The first pronunciation is envelope. Envelope. The second is A, as in father, envelope, as in red, as in father, envelope, envelope. Now, what about this one? This word for sure creates a lot of debate online. So there are actually two legit pronunciations, gif or jif. The first one is gif with a hard g sound, gif, and the other one is jif. Gif and gif both are acceptable. I use the pronunciation gif. That's such a great gif. We need to add a gif here. This word has also two pronunciations in certain cases when it's a noun. For example, can you give me your address? Then you can either say address with the stress on the first syllable and an A as in cat sound. Address. Or. Or you can put the stress on the second syllable, address. What's your address? Or what's your address? Both are correct. However, when you use this word as a verb, I'm going to address this issue. You can only use one pronunciation, and that is address. Stress is on the second syllable. I need to address the problem. Address. So when's the noun address or address and when it's the verb, just address. Now, this word. I have seen a lot of videos online about the pronunciation of this word, so let's get it straight once and for all. You can either pronounce it as data with the A as in day, day, and I am using the general American pronunciation. So you'll notice that my t sounds a little bit like a D. Data, data, data, data. In British English, you'll hear something closer to data with a soft t, or data, data, data with a as in cat. Data, data. Both are correct. Now, how would you pronounce this word? This word is pronounced either with a tense. Oo, as in food. Root. Let's take this root. Or route. Let's take this route. Root, route. Both are correct. Now, how would you pronounce this word? You can either pronounce it as either, long I, as in my either or. As either. Either one. Either, either. And the same thing with this word. Neither or neither. Either, either, neither, neither. Now, this is one of my favorite things to eat, by the way. When I was a kid, I remember picking those nuts up from the floor and kind of like peeling them and eating them. That's like such a. Such a sweet childhood memory. But anyway, how do you pronounce it? You can either pronounce it as pe, can. Pe can, where the stress is on the first syllable. Pe, can, or pecan P, Short I, P, P, unstressed con with an ah, as in father. Pe can as in cat. Pecan. Pecan. Pecan. Choose whatever is easier for you. All right, what about this one? How would you say it? Leisure. Leisure. Both are correct. Leisure. Leisure. Leisure or leisure. Now, the last word for today is this. How would you pronounce it? Often or often? So, obviously, if it's on this list, then both pronunciations are correct. In fact, in Old English, in the t was always pronounced often. And we see it because we have similar words, maybe older words like often, times or oft, and then the t was always pronounced. However, at some point, whenever there was the T, E, n spelling pattern, the pronunciation has changed. And that was the case for many spelling patterns. This is why the spelling is not consistent with the pronunciation. But the T E, n pattern changed, and the T was no longer pronounced. And we see it in words like soften and fasten. Fasten your seatbelts. We don't pronounce the t here. However, at some point in the word often, the T started to come back often. And the T is actually pronounced something that we don't see in fasten or listen. Right? We don't say listen and we don't say fasten. However, we have seen that the T started to come back at some point. It started becoming a valid and acceptable pronunciation. And now you'll hear both often and often. And sometimes the same speaker might say the two different pronunciations, depending on the focus and emphasis they put on this word. Okay. So you can often pronounce it as often. And you can often pronounce it as often. It is up to you, my friend. All right, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing and subscribing and commenting. If you have other words that you think might be controversial, so let us know in the comments. And that's it. Have a beautiful day, and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
