Disclaimer

I am using an automatic transcript service as it is not possible for me to do it on my own and I cannot afford human transcription at the moment. The service claims to have about 95% accuracy, which means there will still be some mistakes, so my apologies for having a less than perfect transcript, but I hope I can afford human transcription soon and I will solve this problem. However, the service is pretty good, and the transcript is almost perfect.

Transcript

Welcome to a new episode from English plus podcast. Today’s episode is about pronunciation. And as we started in our pronunciation series earlier, we’re going to continue today and we will talk about the air sound, the air sound like ed pet and the head. So. So let us start as usual with possible pronunciation problems that may happen.

[00:00:34] If you replace the air sound with something else, what happens if you say a instead of air in this case, pen will sound like pain. So you see it is very important to know the difference. And what happens if you use the app sound instead of air? Matt will sound like Matt, and these are two different words.

[00:00:58] So that is why it is very important to practice your pronunciation and try to get as perfect as you can. Not just to have the perfect pronunciation, because that is the most important thing in learning English, not at all, but you need to be understood well, and you need to get to a level where your pronunciation is clear and understood.

[00:01:23] And if you have this kind of flair of good pronunciation or great pronunciation, why not? That’s even a bonus. That’s even something you can add to your English. And now let’s talk about air. When it comes at the beginning of words, let’s take a look at these words and all of these words have the sound air at the beginning of words, any end egg, edge ELLs, every effort, error, elephant.

[00:02:01] So you see here, we use this air at the beginning of these words, and now let’s see how we can pronounce air in the middle of words. We have air in the middle of words, in words like bed next West rest bend, many bread fence. Present. So these are words that include the air pronunciation in the middle of words.

[00:02:37] And for the air sound, we don’t have it at the end of the word. As in English, it cannot come at the end of words. Now before we continue, let me remind you that you can find a link in the description that will take you to our website, where you will find everything you need to practice everything you’re learning here in English plus podcast, you will find interactive activities.

[00:03:01] You will find PDF, practice worksheets, all related to the episodes. We are creating and it won’t be difficult to find them because we have a special post for every single episode we create and release on English plus podcast. Now, let me continue now and talk about the air spelling. How do we spell the sound?

[00:03:23] How do we spell the air sound? Of course, the main spelling and the most common spelling of the, eh, sound is the letter E. Like when we say yes, red never. And it can also be E a in words, like head dead and measure these words, have the N sound. And this sound is spelled as E a. Now let’s talk about some less frequent spelling.

[00:04:00] We can have the N sound spelled as a, as the letter, a, in words like any, any is pronounced like, eh, any, we can have it as well, spelled as a I, as in again, again, it’s not again, it’s not long. It’s again. We can have it as I E in words like friend, friend, I E we can have it as you E in words like guest guest, or it can also be E O in words like leopard.

[00:04:41] It’s not Leo part. It’s levered. And of course the most common spelling of the S sound is the letter. E usually when it comes before a consonant in a stress syllable, in words like let amendment attended and blending. And the letter E before L is usually air is usually pronounced. Eh, like when we say, well, telephone.

[00:05:13] Felt seldom all of these words have the letter E before L now also we have the sound heir spelled as EA, especially usually when it comes before D so when you have the letters E before D usually the pronunciation is, eh, in words, like thread ahead. Ready and dead. And now that we have learned about the common spellings and the way we can pronounce this vowel sound, let’s see how we can pronounce it.

[00:05:54] In examples. In context, let’s start with this first one. You said it not, you sated, you said it, you said it ahead of lettuce. Head of lettuce. Best friend. Best friend, never better. Never better. Eh, remember this is the sound never better. Eh, breakfast is ready at 10 breakfast is ready at 10 Fred left a message.

[00:06:31] Fred left a message. Let me get some rest. Let me get some rest. Don’t forget to send the letter. Don’t forget to send the letter and now let’s take a look at how we can pronounce, eh, not only in those small examples, let’s talk about it in a text. And this text is about Peter pan. I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard of the famous fictional character.

[00:07:00] Peter pan. Now let me start with this text. Do you remember the play Peter pan? Who can forget the boy who never, ever wanted to grow up. When Wendy and her brothers met Peter pan and the fairy tinker bell, they flew to never, never land, but the play had a happy ending, sir, James Barry, the author presented this play in 1911.

[00:07:31] This sentimental treasure was his best work and made him very wealthy. It was an even better success on Broadway. It was set to music and had special effects. It is often said that no one can be young forever, but with the legend of Peter pan, we get to pretend again and again. So that was everything for our episode today.

[00:08:02] I hope you learned something new and remember it is always a good idea, especially for pronunciation that you repeat again and again, because that is the only way that you can improve your pronunciation. But don’t forget. You can always go to our website, English plus podcast.com and practice even more.

[00:08:23] You will find that we have posts for every single episode with PDF practice worksheets, you can download, and you can check later with the answer keys we provide with interactive activities. And a lot of exciting things are coming to our website. So don’t miss out on this opportunity, take the link and go to our website and improve your English every day.

[00:08:47] There’s also a link to Patreon. If you like the content we’re creating and you would like to support us, become a patron of English plus podcast on Patreon and help us continue and create more content. Now, that being said, let me thank you very much for listening to another episode from English plus podcast.

[00:09:05] This is your host, Danny. I won’t see you next time.