Why You’re Hearing English Wrong (and How to Fix It)

🌟 Episode Highlights

• what are minimal pairs
• how to use minimal pairs to train your ear
• resources to practice listening

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Transcript

Hello, hello! Welcome to English Extras! I’m Jean, your guide to making your English sound natural and authentic.

If you are an intermediate or advanced learner, this podcast is for you because I’m here to teach you the way native speakers really say things.

Don’t forget to check out the free transcript with bonus content for you–I put a link in the description.

Are you ready? Let’s learn some English.

I hope you’re ready because today we are diving into a great topic. First, question: have you ever tried to tell someone you went to the beach… but it sounded a little… wrong? Or, have you ever asked for a sheet of paper and someone gave you a strange look or, worse, started laughing at you?

Today, we are sharpening your listening skills, which is the first step to perfecting your pronunciation. If you ever tried to say “beach” and the other person heard something different, then today’s episode is going to help you.

This little listening secret is called minimal pairs.

I’m not going to get too nerdy in this episode, I promise.

What are minimal pairs? Minimal pairs are two words that are exactly the same except for one single sound–not letter! Sound. The two words sound the same except one sound is different. 

In the case of “beach,” I’m not going to say the other word, but if you change the vowel sound from /i/ to /ı/, you get a word that might offend some people.

Let me give you some other examples. “Bit” and “beat” are minimal pairs. “Cat” and “cut” are minimal pairs. “Pan” and “pen” are minimal pairs. And it isn’t just with vowel sounds: words that have one consonant difference are also minimal pairs, like “bat” and “cat.” But many of these are easier to hear. Vowel sounds are trickier.

Vowel sounds–like A, E, I, O, U–are more difficult to make in a foreign language versus consonant sounds–like /k/ and /p/. The reason is because of the difference between a vowel and a consonant. We call a sound a consonant if your tongue is touching–in linguistics, we say ‘articulating’–with another structure in the mouth, such as your teeth.

But with vowels, your tongue isn’t touching anything. Vowels are characterized by tongue position–so, where your tongue is in your mouth; lip rounding–meaning how rounded your lips are, or not at all; tense or lax–meaning how tight or relaxed your mouth muscles are; and movement–meaning, if and how your mouth moves during a vowel.

So vowels are more difficult, and you might be thinking: this is impossible, I will never be able to master vowels in American English.

Wrong. You can. And I’m going to tell you how right now.

Train your ear to recognize the small differences between vowel sounds and when your ear is trained, you will be able to train your mouth to match what you hear.

But. But. But. I want to emphasize this: do not skip the ear training. I emphasize training your ear first, because if you want to be able to train your mouth, you have to be able to hear what sound you are making and compare it to what you are hearing from a native speaker. You cannot correct yourself if you don’t train your ear.

This is super important and you have to be patient. Spend a lot of time training your ear. I’m not saying don’t speak, but understand that you have to train your ear before you can train your mouth. The goal is to train your ear so that you can correct yourself when you speak. So practice speaking, but don’t forget to listen, listen, listen. You promise? Okay, good.

Now we’re going to try it.

I’m going to say a minimal pair. I’m going to say each word normally first, then I will repeat each word very slowly. Try to identify the difference between each word.

If you’re watching this on YouTube, please turn off the subtitles. We are not practicing our reading here; we’re practicing listening. So, if you’re watching on Youtube, turn off the subtitles now.

Ready? Here we go.

Sit. Seat. Sit. Seat.

Fan. Van. Fan. Van.

Rice. Lice. Rice. Lice.

Full. Fool. Full. Fool.

Right now, I want you to quiz yourself. Practice these sentences:

I sit in a seat. I sit in a seat.

There’s a fan in my van. There’s a fan in my van.

There’s lice in my rice. There’s lice in my rice.

He’s a full fool. He’s a full fool.

They’re like tongue twisters.

Now I’m going to quiz you. I’m going to say one of the words in the pairs from before and I want you to think about which pair it is. Was it ‘fool’ or ‘full’? Like that. Ready?

Van.

Which did you hear? Fan or van?

Van.

That was ‘van’ with a /v/.

Let’s do another one. Ready?

Seat.

Which did you hear? Seat or sit?

Seat.

That was ‘seat’ with an /i/.

One more. Ready?

Rice.

Which did you hear? Rice or lice?

Rice.

That was ‘rice’ with an /r/.

Good practice! Give yourself a pat on the back. 

Now, you probably want to be able to practice these more on your own. That’s because you are a serious English learner. So, here are my recommendations: search for ‘minimal pairs listening practice’ on YouTube and find a format that you like; go to a website called YouGlish and search for one of the pairs to hear it in context, then search for the other pair; there’s also a great article from English Club that I will link in the description.

Now, in my opinion, you don’t have to spend 30 minutes a day doing this. Spend maybe 10 minutes. The important thing is to be consistent. It will take consistent practice to see a difference. So add minimal pair training into your current English habits and keep going.

You might think you have a terrible ear for English, but it’s not you–it’s your ear. And training those ears are part of mastering a language. 

If you know someone who is also struggling with their English ears, make sure to tell them about this episode. And if you learned something from this episode, you probably should subscribe or follow me because if you liked this episode, you’ll probably like my other episodes, too, and I post a new episode every week.

Thanks for being here, my friends. You are awesome! And you got this! I believe in you.

Until next time!

Bye!