Similar English Vowels? Here’s How To NOT Get Confused! [Minimal Pairs Guide]

Hey, everyone, it's Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we are going to talk about and practice the most confusing vowel pairs in English. So we are going to talk about why they're confusing and how you can overcome this confusion and sound more clear and get what you want. But before that, let me tell you a funny story. When I was in acting school, I don't know if you know, but I am not a native speaker of English. So I was an acting student back when I was 20 in New York City. And I remember sitting among my friends and we were having this conversation about our favorite actors. And I said, you know, my favorite actor is Meryl Strep. And all my friends looked at me and started giggling. And I was like, what? Meryl Streep? What's wrong now? Her name is pronounced Meryl Streep. Strip is a different word. Now, it took me a hot minute to understand that they're not making fun of me, but laughing at what I just said, because I just said something completely different that I did not mean to say. And this was one of the first experiences of me encountering awkward moments because of the fact that I was confusing those two vowel sounds that back then were when I was 21, they seemed exactly the same to me. Or even if I heard the difference, my mouth would not obey. And right now, I'm talking about the sheepship vowel pair, which we will talk about today. So today I want to cover some of those confusing vowel sounds, and I want to talk about why they're confusing and a few tips on how to practice those vowel pairs. Now, here's the thing. In American English, there are several different vowels, about 16 vowels depending on the dialect. And most languages have between 5 to 8, 10, 12 vowel sounds. Now, what happens when you speak a language that has more vowel sounds than in what you have in your language is that one, you may not even notice the difference between them because. Because your brain will categorize those sounds as the same similar sounds. Or maybe you might hear the difference and understand that it's important. But then your mouth would play tricks on you and would always go back to pronouncing the old sounds. Because going back to old pronunciation habits is easier than acquiring new pronunciation habits, which is basically pronounced pronouncing the new sounds. So when you're trying to open up the vowels in your language, when speaking English, open up your ability to pronounce all vowels in your language. We need to follow a few steps. One, perception. You need to be able to hear the difference, this is what we're going to do today. And two, pronunciation. So you need to know what exactly you need to do with your mouth. 2, 3 is all about practice. So you need to practice it effectively. So I'm going to give you a few tips on how to do that. Four, it's all about intentional practice. So when you're practicing it, you also need to practice it while speaking. And five, you need to decide if this vowel pair is really essential for your clarity. If it's challenging for you, maybe it's not even a problem. Therefore, you don't really need to practice it. So. So that would be prioritizing it and deciding if this is really important for you and will get you immediate results. So in this video, we're going to focus on steps one, two, and three, Perception, pronunciation. And I'm going to give you a few tips on how to practice it effectively. So let's begin with the first vowel pair. Sheep, ship. Tense E and lax. E. In many languages, there is only one E sound that is right there in the middle. The tense is longer. The tongue is higher. The lips pull to the sides. Sheep versus the lax. The mouth is more open. The tongue is lower. So you want to imagine as if you have more space between the tongue and the upper palate. You want to relax it. It's more relaxed. It's shorter. I. It's somewhere between E and E. If you have those two vowel sounds in your language. Right. Sheep, ship. Let's practice it in a few more words. Green, grin. It's kind of like you don't really care about the sound. I. Grin, Leap, Lip, Peach, Pitch, Seek, Sick. I. I. The next vowel pair that we're going to practice today is I versus E. This is not important for most speakers, but if you tend to confuse those two vowel sounds like bin and ben, this practice is definitely for you. So here we're talking about the lax, usually represented with the letter I Been. Sit. Fit versus the E sound that is usually represented with the letter E. Sometimes ea, like head. E. E. Bin. Ben, Chick. Check. Disc. Desk. Middle. Metal. I. As you can see, I lower my jaw and also I lower my tongue. I. Been Ben. Middle. Me. Metal. Metal. This one is closer to a neutral sound. In English, the E sound is a bit more open. Bitter. Better. Bitter. Better. Okay, good. The next vowel pair is E versus A bed. Bad. E usually represented with the letter E, just like the one that we practice now. E versus usually represented with the letter A. So here the jaw drops even more. The lips pull to the sides just a bit. The tongue is flat. The back of the tongue is high. It sounds like something's ugly. It's like in your face. A hat, Cat, Happy. And then let's compare those two vowel sounds. Now, if you don't tend to open your mouth wide when you're speaking, this vowel pair is going to be challenging for you because you might want to say both in the same way. Bed and bed. It's a really bed, bed. Instead of it's a really bad bed, right? E. Ah. Practice it with me. E, Bed. Bad. Head. Had. Left, Laughed. Better batter. Now let's practice all three vowel sounds that we just practiced together. Bitter. Better batter. Bitter. Better batter. Okay, Very good. Let's move on to the luck versus lock, cup, cop. The middle central sound, also known as the stressed chwa. The cup sound versus the back open ah sound, also known as the father vowel. Ah. So for the cup sound, the jaw is kind of neutral. You open the mouth just a little bit. The tongue is not super flat, but you want to raise it just a little bit. You want to direct your sound towards the upper palate. Cup, cup, country, money, fun, love. This vowel sound is usually represented with the letter U. Like up with a letter O. Like sun, S O, N, but also S U, N Money, month, O, U country, O like love. Okay, so you want to think of it like this neutral sound that's actually the closest one to a neutral sound that you might have in your language. So cup, love, fun versus the back open ah sound usually represented with O, like honest, office, job, coffee. Now, a lot of times people tend to pronounce the sound as an o sound, which is totally fine. I. I recommend to open it up a bit more for the ah sound. And then this is where it starts getting a little confusing for people. Because then what is the difference between color and collar? Right? Or luck and lock and bus and boss. So let's talk about it. Bus. Small, sharp, more closed. Neutral. Closer to an sound. Bus. Bus. Let's take the bus. Boss. My boss just called me Ba. It's closer to the back of the mouth. It has a darker quality because it is produced in the back of the mouth. Ah. It happens. It goes towards the back of the mouth because you drop your tongue, you drop the root of the tongue, and the voice resonates in the back. Also, your mouth opens more and the lips round just a bit, not too much. Ah. Office, job, father, boss. Ah. Now, if you just listen to the sound, it does sound like an sound. Now if you have a In your language, you know what I'm talking about because I cannot define the sound. But if you have a neutral a sound, then yes, you might analyze it more like an. Then an o sound if you were to just listen to it. It's not o f s. However, spelling is really deceiving because it's usually spelled with o and we associate the letter o with a sound. O, O. Right. So again, what I'm saying here might not be relevant for all speakers, but if that resonates with you, just let me know in the comments. And if it doesn't, let me know in the comments too. So back to the two sounds. Cup versus Cop. Cup. Cop. So the cup sound is really neutral and closed. The copy is more open. Relaxed lips round just a bit. Not an o sound, but more of a back open. Ah. Cop. Luck. Lock and bus. Boss. Color Cuh. Kuh. Directed forward and up. Color collar. Collar. Color collar. Very good. Now let's talk about the pool pull vowel pair. The pool pull vowel pair is a tense oo sound and a lacks pool pull. The tense oo sound. I think of it like the cousins, the back cousins of the sheepship vowel pair. Because one is tense oo. Pool u. Here the back of the tongue goes up. It's really high up in the back. The lips round. It is a longer sound. Oo, u too. Just like the tense e is a little longer. See, we read, right? And then the lax. It's like the casual partner of the tense u. It's more relaxed. Cook. Look. Book. Foot. If you're trying to figure out the spelling patterns and to understand which is which, I actually have a full video about this pair and actually all the other pairs. So if you want to go a little deeper, I'm going to list all those videos below. This is just an overview of all the confusing vowel pairs. But again, like, if you want to go deeper and practice more each vowel pair. I got you covered. Covered. Cup. Cup. Not ah. Covered. Covered. So back to tense oo. Food. Foot. Pool Pull. Who'd hood Luke. Look fool. Tense oo. Fall. So the jaw drops a bit. The tongue is a little lower. The lips round just a bit. Imagine like you have a hot potato inside your mouth. Cook, look, book. Again, the casual indifferent partner of the tense oo. Like you're trying to make an oo sound, but then you're pretty chill about it. Foot. Whatever. You can say that. Whatever. Foot. Book. Facebook. Who cares? Facebook. Uck. It really helps. Try it out. Try it out. I'm telling you, don't Dismiss it. Dismiss. Also that chill sound. Dismiss. Okay, last pair for today is the O versus ah. Here, it's a little confusing because of the spelling patterns, and this is why I wanted to include this pair. So, for example, boat versus bought. Bought is a long, open sound, and it's actually. It could be pronounced with the oz and father bought, depending on the dialect. Right? So you can say bought, and you can round the lips a little more to say bought. Right? Either way, it's one continuous sound, right? It's not changing versus boat. Right? Here it's a long O as in go. And again, I have videos about each one of those vowel sounds, but notice that the o sound is changing boat. So even though in the word bought, there is o and u, in the spelling, it's one sound, bought. And in boat, we have oa. But it could also be ou or o W in terms of the spelling. And here we have o boat. So please don't look at the spelling and assume which vowel it would be, because it will confuse you and it will not be consistent. I want you to open up your ears and start hearing the sounds that we're now making, you and me, right. Instead of trusting the spelling, because spelling and pronunciation are very, very inconsistent. Even though there are patterns, it's still very inconsistent. So you need to develop new systems to know what it is that you're hearing. Okay, so let's practice a few of those vowel law. Ah. Ah. Low. Now, if you struggle with a long o sound, some people might actually struggle with a diphthong, which with making this long o sound, then these two words would sound the same. Law and law. Right. If you look at the spelling and you see a W and you think, oh, it's a changing vowel, then again, both would sound the same low and low. So try to place yourself on the spectrum. Try to understand what is confusing to you so you'll have a better understanding as to what you need to change in terms of your perception and in terms of your pronunciation. Okay, so let's practice it a bit more. Lawn, loan. O. Lawn loan. Want. This is a good one. Want versus won't. A lot of people tend to confuse those two. Want. Whoa. Get to the oo sound. Won't. Want. Won't. All right, so I think we covered most of the confusing vowel pairs. I'm sure there are more depending on the language that you speak. Of course, there's also consonants, but we're not going to talk about consonants now. So how to practice. If you found one of those vowel Pairs exceptionally difficult. Or you haven't even noticed this pair before that it existed. Therefore, it probably means that you were merging those two vowel sounds and then different words sounded the same. Then I would encourage you to go online or go to my website and find lists of words where you see those pairs, right? So you can practice them. And I want you to practice with the notes you've gotten in the video, because I gave you a lot of tips on how to tweak it and how to change it to understand the difference between the two. So first perception. Now you understand the difference. Then we have pronunciation. So you need to practice it and even record yourself and listen back to it to see that you're actually hearing the difference. And then the act of practice is all about building pronunciation confidence and building muscle memory. So you want to repeat it again and again and again and again, the new pronunciation, until you build those new habits. And then you won't have to think about it. And you would automatically go to the new sounds instead of the old sounds. Not that there's anything wrong about your old sounds. Let's put it out there. But when it comes to confusing vowel sounds, then sometimes you might say strictly drip instead of streep. And then you might be in a situation where it's like, why are people talking about how I'm saying things instead of what I'm saying? Because it's all about making you feel more powerful in your English. Okay? And aware and in control and in charge, like you deserve. Thank you so much for being here and doing this lesson with me. I want to tell you how much I appreciate you for doing the work and for watching it all the way to the end and for trusting that it is possible. Because it is. I promise. I guarantee. So, just for fun, put in the comments. One vowel pair. That was the most difficult one for you. And if you want, you can also tell me what your first language is, because then I can start putting all the pieces together and seeing how I can help you even more. So, thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you haven't yet, and subscribe and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.