Can you tell the difference?
Today, we are going to learn about the differences in American pronunciation between the words
“hurt,” “heard,” and “hard.”
The first word “hurt” can be a verb, an adjective, or a noun.
As a verb, it means to cause mental or physical pain to someone.
The second word “heard” is the past tense of the verb “hear” which means to perceive
by the ear.
And the third word “hard” can be an adjective or an adverb.
As an adjective, it means solid or not soft.
It can also mean difficult to do.
To understand the differences between these words, let’s compare the first two words,
“hurt,” and “heard.”
Both words start with an h like “huh, huh”, followed by the same
“ɜr.” sound like hur-t and hear-d.
Your lips should be slightly rounded and the tip of your tongue is curled as you say “hɚ.”
The difference between these words lies in the last sounds of the words “t” and “d.”
While the “t” sound is unvoiced, the “d” sound is voiced.
When you make a voiced sound such as the “d” sound, your throat vibrates.
You can make the “t” sound by pushing air through the opening of your mouth without
causing the throat to vibrate.
Next, we are going to compare the words “hard” and “heard.”
To say “hard,” you need to open your mouth bigger and drop your jaw little more, compared
to the pronunciation of “hurt” and “heard.”
And the “HAR” sound like /hɑɚd/ should be coming from the back of your mouth.
That’s the only difference between these words and both words end with the same soft d sound.
Let me demonstrate how to pronounce these words.
Please pay close attention to the shape of my lips and the position of my jaw and tongue.
hur-, hur-, hurt
hear-, hear-, heard
har-, har-, hard
hur-, hur-, hurt
hear-, hear-, heard
har-, har-, hard
Now, I am going to give you a quiz.
I will pick one of the three words and say it three times.
Please listen carefully and tell me which word I am pronouncing next.
I hope you could tell the differences and picked the word “hard” for your answer.
We have another question for you.
I am going to read a sentence twice that contains one of the three words.
Your job is to tell me which word I am using in the sentence.
The answer is “hurt.”
I hope this was an easy question for you because, grammatically, the word “hurt” is the
only correct choice for this sentence out of the three words.
If somebody said, “I didn’t want to heard him.”
or “I didn’t want to hard him,” these sentences would be grammatically incorrect.
So, in most cases, knowing the correct English grammar can help your listening comprehension.
Okay?
I have one more question.
This time, I will read a sentence that contains two of the three words.
I’ll say the sentence three times and give you a little hint each time.
I’d like you to tell me which words are used in what parts of the sentence.
Okay, let’s begin.
And the answer is, I heard her say, “I’m hard of hearing.”
The phrase “hard of hearing” means having a partial loss of hearing.
In other words, it is difficult for the woman to hear what people are saying because she
has partially lost her ability to hear sounds.
Well, that’s it for today.
If you didn’t answer all of the questions correctly, watch this video over and over
until you can tell the differences between these words.
Thank you for watching and see you next time.