218: Learn to hear vowels to learn to pronounce them

Test your ability to identify vowel sounds with this special listening quiz episode.

Hi again, and welcome back to the American English Pronunciation podcast. This is our 218th episode and today we’re doing a special kind of show. 

One of the comments I frequently hear from my students is how working on pronunciation greatly improves their listening comprehension. It’s true. Practicing pronouncing specific sounds has the fantastic side benefit of training your ears to hear things you that may have never heard before. You see, it’s very difficult to pronounce something that you can’t hear, and our brains—after we’re 13 or 14 years old—stop easily hearing sounds that we haven’t been exposed to. The good news is that that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to hear sounds even if you’re older than that, and we’re going to practice that today.

In the past two episodes, I talked about a number of different vowel sounds. Today I want to do some listening practice comparing a few of those specific sounds that I know non-native speakers have trouble distinguishing.

First we’re going to review the sounds. Let’s begin with short a and short e. The short a is pronounced (short a) and is the vowel sound in the word cat: (short a, cat). The short e is pronounced (short e) and is the vowel sound in the word bed: (short e, bed). 

Listen to the short a/short e comparison: (short a, short e). 

Some minimal pairs between these sounds are:

1. band, bend
2. gas, guess
3. land, lend
4. mansion, mention
5. sand, send

Good. Now let’s compare the short a (short a), with the short o. The short o sounds like (short o) and is the vowel sound in the word top: (short o, top). 

Listen to the short a/short o comparison: (short a, short o). 

Some minimal pairs between these sounds are:

1. add, odd
2. hat, hot
3. lack, lock
4. rack, rock
5. tap, top

The next set of sounds we’re going to compare is the short e with the short i. The short e is pronounced (short e) and is the vowel sound in the word bed: (short e, bed). The short i sounds like (short i) and is the vowel sound in the word sit: (short i, sit).

Listen to the short e/short i comparison: (short e, short i). 

Some short e/short i minimal pairs are:

1. bet, bit
2. fell, fill
3. lesson, listen
4. meant, mint
5. sense, since

And finally, we’re going to compare short i, (short i), and long e. The long e sounds like the letter e (long e). Remember, all long vowels are pronounced the same as their letter name. Our long e key word is the word keep: (long e, keep). 

Listen to the short i/long e comparison: (short i, long e). 

Here are some minimal pairs to help you with those sounds:

1. itch, each
2. grin, green
3. rich, reach
4. slip, sleep
5. will, wheel

Now that you’ve had that little review, let’s do the listening check. I’m going to say a word, and I want you to identify the vowel sound in that word. Are you ready? I’ll say each word twice, then tell you the answer.

1. pat, pat
The word pat is pronounced with the short a, the same sound as in the word cat: pat, cat.

2. mess, mess
The word mess is pronounced with the short e, the same sound as in the word bed: mess, bed.

3. myth, myth
The word myth is pronounced with the short i, the same sound as in the word sit: myth, sit.

4. ski, ski
The word ski is pronounced with the long e, the same sound as in the word keep: ski, keep.

5. head, head
The word head is pronounced with the short e, the same sound as in the word bed: head, bed.

6. build, build
The word build is pronounced with the short i, the same sound as in the word sit: build, sit.

7. cop, cop
The word cop is pronounced with the short o, the same sound as in the word top: cop, top.

8. friend, friend
The word friend is pronounced with the short e, the same sound as in the word bed: friend, bed.

9. chop, chop
The word chop is pronounced with the short o, the same sound as in the word top: chop, top.

10. feet, feet
The word feet is pronounced with the long e, the same sound as in the word keep: feet, keep.

11. not, not
The word not is pronounced with the short o, the same sound as in the word top: not, top.

12. laugh, laugh
The word laugh is pronounced with the short a, the same sound as in the word cat: laugh, cat.

13. lesson, lesson (first syllable)
The first syllable of the word lesson is pronounced with the short e, the same sound as in the word bed: lesson, bed.

14. laughed, laughed
The word laughed is pronounced with the short a, the same sound as in the word cat: laughed, cat.

15. fond, fond
The word fond is pronounced with the short o, the same sound as in the word top: fond, top.

16. each, each
The word each is pronounced with the long e, the same sound as in the word keep: each, keep.

17. give, give
The word give is pronounced with the short i, the same sound as in the word sit: give, sit.

18. said, said
The word said is pronounced with the short e, the same sound as in the word bed: said, bed. (Be careful with that one; said doesn’t rhyme with paid!)

19. steal
The word steal is pronounced with the long e, the same sound as in the word keep: steal, keep.

20. win
The word win is pronounced with the short i, the same sound as in the word sit: win, sit.

If you like this kind of listening quiz, there are more of them in our book, Pronunciation Pages! Pronunciation Pages has over 5 hours of audio in total. It also comes with the sound lists for all of the sounds of English. If there is a sound you want to practice, it’s in that book. 

Also, I talked in the last episode about how important listening is for pronunciation practice when I encouraged you to try a free one-month subscription of Audible, the audiobook and audio newspaper service. As a reminder, you can get that free subscription by going to www.audibletrial.com/pronuncian. To make it an even better deal for you, if you forward your welcome email from Audible to us, we’ll send you a $5 coupon for any product on Pronuncian.com. Now that’s a very sweet deal. You sign up for a free service for a month and get a $5 coupon out of it? Wow, we think that’s pretty cool! We’ll run this offer through the month of November, 2016, so don’t wait. All you have to do is forward your welcome email from Audible to us at podcast@pronuncian.com, and we’ll send you the $5 Pronuncian product coupon code. Go to audibletrial.com/pronuncian now to get started.

That’s all for today, everyone. If you enjoyed this special listening episode of the American English Pronunciation podcast, let us know by sending an email to podcast@pronuncian.com, or by leaving a review for us on iTunes. We appreciate any form of support you can give us to help us keep this podcast coming to you.

Thanks for listening. Bye-bye