Common Pronunciation Mistakes
The “l” and “r”
The “l” and “r” sound are commonly confused. The issue is with the position of the tongue on the teeth. The “l” sound pushes against the back of the teeth using a large flap of the tongue. The “r” sound is completely different since you hold the tongue farther back in the mouth. There are various “r” sounds so this is just a basic concept. Here are a few minimal pairs with the “l” and “r” sounds:
- rice lice
- light right
- fly fry
- long wrong
- glass grass
- law raw
- led red
- lip rip
- pilot pirate
- late rate
The “v” and “w” Sounds
Many students want to pronounce the “w” sound as if it was a “v” sound. An example of this is the pronouncing “wine” as “vine”. Here are a few minimal pairs with the “v” and “w” sounds:
- vest west
- veil wail
- vine wine
- viper wiper
- groove grew
- very weary
- roving rowing
- visor wiser
- verse worse
Short “i” Pronunciation
The “i” sound can be very confusing for native Spanish and French students since their “i” sounds like an English “e”. What makes it more confusing is the use of long and short vowel sounds. Here are a few minimal pairs with the short “i” and long “e” sounds:
- ship sheep
- sit seat
- slip sleep
- hit heat
- lip leap
- mill meal
- still steal
- grid greed
- hip heap
- knit neat
- lick leak
The Different “th” Sounds
There are three different types of “th” sounds. The two most common are the voiced and voiceless “th” sounds. There is also a regular “t” sound that it makes in certain words. This makes it difficult for ESL students to pronounce the proper sound each time they see the “th” combination. Here are the three “th” sounds along with a few examples:
1. Voiced:
| them | this | mother |
| that | smooth | they |
2. Voiceless:
| think | three | thing |
| bath | thought | method |
3. Regular “t” sound:
| Beethoven | Thomas | thyme |
| Thames | Theresa | Thailand |
The “Schwa” Sound
The difficulty with the “schwa” sound is that it can be produced in many different ways. This makes it hard to recognize a pattern. Keep in mind that all vowels can make the schwa sound. The consonant “y” can produce the sound as well. One pattern to recognize is that you will see the “schwa” sound in many unstressed or secondary stressed syllables after the syllable with the main(primary) stress.
| a | adept, pleasant(second a), again, vitamin |
| e | synthesis, problem, taken, dozen(the o too), enemy |
| i | decimal, estimate, stencil, mountain(ai combination), president(the e too) |
| o | harmony, confront(both), seldom, other, history |
| u | medium, trusted, adjust(the a too), curious(ou combination) |
| y | syringe, rhythm, cylindrical |
The Difference Between Sound and Spelling
English does not always sound like it is written. This is difficult for many English learners since many of their native languages sound just like they are spelled. There is no easy way to learn this. ESL students have to continue to look for basic patterns in the syllables and recognize the exceptions. Here are a few examples of English words that do not sound like they are spelled:
- thought
- February
- Wednesday
- jeopardy
- receipt
- island
- colonel
- zucchini
- phone
- psychiatrist
- bologna
- debris
Adjectives Before Nouns
In other languages the noun comes before the adjective. This is the opposite in English where adjectives come before the noun. This is a difference between “red house” and “house red”. This is more confusing when the native speaker’s language uses plural forms for the adjectives. The difference would be “red houses” and “houses reds”. This is easy to learn once the issue is understood.