10 Difficult English words Explained

well hey there i'm keenan and this is the clear english corner so i get a lot of comments and emails asking for help with words that are particularly challenging to get out of the mouth so in this lesson we're going to break down 10 words that are commonly hard to pronounce and make them more approachable by the end of this lesson you'll feel a lot more confident conquering these tricky words sound like a plan all right let's dive in first i want to share two tips for tackling difficult words tip number one break it down when we try to rush through all the tricky sounds in a difficult word at once the tongue gets tied up and we end up with a jumbled mess you want to break tricky words into their smallest parts listen for the syllables inside the word and inside those syllables listen for specific sounds then you want to practice the word syllable by syllable in slow motion and you want to repeat it this way over and over the tendency is to try slow motion one time and then speed back up and try to say the word at a normal pace and then you get all mixed up again you have to practice the word slowly over and over try to say it like five or ten times a day for a week and it will begin to flow out of your mouth much easier all right tip number two remember to listen for sounds don't look at letters all right english is not a phonetic language letters do not equal sounds one letter or a combination of letters can have different pronunciations so you have to listen for the sounds not look at the letters if you're not sure where to go to hear a model of the word that's giving you trouble just use google you can search how to pronounce refrigerator and it'll pop up with a model of the spoken word you can even record yourself and compare your recording to the model it's pretty cool all right first word squirrel squirrel we have two syllables here emphasis on the first syllable and the er as in purple vowel sound this is key all right even though you see a u and an i and an r the sound is er er and it's stressed so we're going to stretch that sound we're going to give it what i call the light bulb treatment letting the voice brighten and dim back down squirrel and then the s q and u is going to sound like all right the q and the u together typically are going to sound like a k k and a w you'll also hear this in words like queen and quick squir score and then our second syllable is just the dark l sound oh the back of my tongue is pressing down creating space in the back of the mouth here squirrel squirrel now the key to making this word sound natural is that you want to hold that er at the end of the first syllable and flow directly into that dark l sound squirrel all right you don't want to break there you don't want square o all squirrel keep the voice flowing from sound to sound squirrel did you see the size of that squirrel did you see the size of that squirrel next word jewelry jewelry all right we have two syllables here i know it looks like it should be three but the more common pronunciation of this word is just two syllables jewelry emphasis on that first syllable we have the ooh is in blue vowel sound into the dark l jewel jewelry we have the soft g sound at the beginning of that syllable if that's a if that's a sound that's tricky for you you'll definitely want to check out this lesson jewelry and then our second syllable is the r consonant into the e is in green vowel it's the unstressed syllable so it's a little quicker jewelry again to make this word sound natural you want to hold that dark l sound right into the beginning of the next syllable jewelry jewelry i don't have a lot of fancy jewelry i don't have a lot of fancy jewelry all right word number three [Music] this one is actually pronounced choir choir if it was spelled the way it sounds it would look like this choir it rhymes with fire wire and tire we have two syllables here emphasis on the first syllable and the i as in white vowel sound quai koi and then that ch is gonna sound like a k k and w together it's the same sound that the q and the u typically make so i guess it could technically be spelled like this and then our second syllable is again the er as in purple sound it's unstressed so it's going to be quicker choir choir she sings in the choir every sunday she sings in the choir every sunday number four quote quote a lot of my students will pronounce this word as coat but again we have that q and u together it's going to sound like a k k and w quote the quote was significantly higher than expected the quote was significantly higher than expected number five rural oh my gosh all those r's and l's make this word a little scary right let's break it down though we have two syllables emphasis on the first syllable and the er as in purple sound you see the letter u and the r but the sound is er er and we have an initial r as well r r try just that syllable with me r r then our second syllable is just the dark l sound again the tongue is pressing down here in the back creating space in the back of the mouth [Music] the key to having this word sound more natural is to hold that er sound at the end of the first syllable and go right into the dark l keep your voice flowing from sound to sound [Music] rural we live in a rural area we live in a rural area number six murderer murderer we have a lot of er in this word as well we've talked a lot about this er as in purple sound in this lesson if that's a particularly hard one for you and you need some help getting that sound you'll definitely want to check out this lesson all right murderer murderer we have three syllables here emphasis on our first syllable and the er is in purple sound we have the m consonant into the er mer mer then in our second syllable again we have the er sound but it's unstressed it's going to be a little quicker and this syllable starts with the d consonant der murder murder then our third syllable is again going to be the er as in purple sound it's unstressed so it's quick er er murder now the key to getting this word to sound natural is you're going to hold that er sound at the end of the second syllable and release it into the third syllable so it's going to sound like like the beginning of the word rural r r murderer murderer they're still looking for the murderer they're still looking for the murderer number seven uh deteriorate deter what is this word deteriorate deteriorate okay we've got five syllables here our emphasis is on the second syllable deter deteriorate and inside this second syllable we have a vowel plus er combination there's two parts to this sound ear you're going to hear that e as in green vowel flowing into the er sound ear ear so the second syllable is going to sound like tear like oh i'm crying tear our first syllable is a schwa gonna be very quick the tear the tear our third syllable is just the e as in green vowel sound de tiri de tiri our fourth syllable we have another schwa very quick not sure about the schwa sound you'll definitely want to check out this lesson deteriorate rate then our last syllable r-a-t-e rate rate deteriorate deteriorate this material will deteriorate over time this material will deteriorate over time number eight library library a lot of my students will pronounce this word library my daughter says it that way as well that r sound after the b is missing though and you want to make sure that that sounds in there so we have three syllables in this word emphasis on the first syllable and the i as in white vowel sound lie rare then our second syllable we have the b and r cluster you want to make sure that you're pronouncing each of those sounds rare all right then we have another vowel plus er combination it's the e as in red vowel sound into the er and it's going to sound like air air brayer brayer these vowel plus r sounds can be super tricky if you need some more help with those sounds definitely check out this lesson br rare and then our final syllable is just the e as in green sound library library library let's stop by the library on the way home let's stop by the library on the way home number nine jur jur we've got two syllables here emphasis on that first syllable and again it's the er as in purple vowel sound jur jur our second syllable is gonna be the er as in purple again it's unstressed it's going to be a little quicker again the secret to getting this word to sound more natural is you're going to hold that er sound at the end of the first syllable and release it into the second syllable so it's going to sound like juror juror i've never been a juror i've never been a juror have you ever heard of the rural juror there's actually an episode of a popular show called 30 rock where the character is in a movie called the rural juror and it's so hard to say and no one can figure out what she's saying the title of the movie is and it's really pretty hilarious i have a link for you to a clip from that episode in the video description rural jur all right and our final challenging word bureaucrat bureaucrat all right there's three syllables in this word our emphasis is on the first syllable beer beer i know you don't see it there's no letter y there but do you hear the ya ya sound beer beer then again we have our er as and purple sound you may hear some people say bjor with that ooh as in blue but more commonly this syllable is going to reduce down to bur bure our second syllables just a quick schwa sound i know you see an e and an a and a u but the sound is just uh uh it's a schwa bureau bureau then our final syllable we have a c and an r cluster you want to make sure that you're getting the c both of those sounds pronounced it's not bureau rat or bureau cat it's bureaucrat bureaucrat bureaucrat we have local state and federal bureaucrats to uphold the bureaucracy we have local state and federal bureaucrats to uphold the bureaucracy so there you have it 10 super tricky words broken down and made more approachable i hope you found the lesson helpful if you did please be sure to share with friends that's the highest compliment and if you're ready to learn a little more about gaining clarity and naturalness in your spoken english be sure to check out my free three-part training own your english i have a link for you in the video description as always thanks so much for tuning in and i'll see you next time

Channel: Clear English Corner with Keenyn Rhodes

Views: 37,034

Keywords: difficult english words, hard english words, pronunciation of english words, pronunciation practice, hard english words to pronounce, pronunciation practice american english, how to pronounce squirrel, how to pronounce jewelry, how to pronounce choir, how to pronounce quote, how to pronounce rural, how to pronounce murderer, how to pronounce deteriorate, how to pronounce library, how to pronounce juror, how to pronounce bureaucrat, keenyn, clear english corner

Id: IFPFJjlySuU

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021