Hi, students, hope you're well.
My name is Jade Joddle.
I am your English teacher and today I'm
going to teach you about some confusing words which you might
get mixed up because they have the same sound but different
meanings and spellings.
And it's important that you learn the difference
between these words, partly for your pronunciation,
but also because whenever you're writing these words it's
important to use the right spelling so that you don't make
a grammatical mistake.
Something that all of our homophone words have in common
today is that they all have the same sound inside them,
which is /eɪ/.
This is what the sound looks like in IPA.
Yes, it's confusing it has an E symbol and I symbol
but together this sound is /eɪ/, and the letter 'A' which I
written on the board here will help you remember: /eɪ/.
And the reason all of our homophone words today have this
sound inside, /eɪ/, is because it will help you remember.
If you just have a quick look at the board here,
you will see lots of different spellings going on.
The important thing to realise is that all of these spellings
have the sound /eɪ/ inside of them.
Good.
Now, we can get on with the confusing words.
Our first homophone group has three different meanings.
All of them sound like /reɪn/.
I think it's going to rain, have you got your umbrella?
The reign of a King or queen is the period of time
that they rule for.
So we can say, the reign of Queen Elizabeth II
has been very long.
Now, our next word is a bit of a cheat
because we normally use this in the plural.
When we talk about the reins it's
what we use to control a horse.
But we can also say, if you happen to be in Santa's sleigh,
'Hold on to the reins to control the reindeer'.
Moving on to our next homophones, we have /meɪd/,
which is the past tense of the verb 'make'.
Have you made your bed yet?
We have a different meaning here,
'maid', which is a woman that cleans somebody's house
for them.
So you can say--
or a hotel.
You can say, 'Has the maid cleaned the bathroom yet?'
Our next pair, we have the word 'mail', which means the post
that you receive--
the letters that you receive.
In England we have Royal Mail; they
deliver the letters for us.
So you can say, 'Has the mail arrived yet?'
But to be honest, I don't think that sounds the most natural.
I would say, 'Has the post arrived yet?'
But 'mail' and 'post', they mean pretty much the same thing.
To do with letters.
Then this male, is male or female.
I can say, 'is the kitten male or female?'
Our next pair of words sound like /steɪk/.
I do sometimes hear a mispronunciation
with these words because quite a few students
like to say the word stick, like what is on a tree.
Hit someone with a stick.
But this is a long vowel in here, /eɪ/; a steak.
Do you like your steak rare?
That means not cooked very much.
Then we have a different kind of stake
which can be what you put through the heart of a vampire
to kill it, and in terms of finance or business,
this can mean the share of something.
So I could say, 'I have a 20% stake in that business.'
Our next pair of words all sound like /veɪn/.
A vain person is constantly looking in the mirror;
'He is so vain'.
Then if you go to hospital, the nurse might check your vein
and take blood from your vein.
The next one isn't used that often.
It's become a little bit obsolete, not needed anymore.
A weather vane is used to tell which direction the wind
is blowing.
Next we have /meɪn/.
The main point of the story is--
the most important or central.
And then the second meaning is a lion's mane.
That's big thick hair that grows around a lion's face--
a male, a male's face.
Moving on, we have /weɪl/.
I have a pronunciation note here.
We have a silent /h/ in there.
Whale.
A whale is the very big creature in...
Mammal.
In the ocean and they blow--
they blow air when they are swimming in the sea.
And then we have 'wail', which means to let out a very loud
cry.
So you may wail in despair.
If somebody dies, you may wail in despair.
But bear in mind that word is a little bit old fashioned.
We would probably say cry or scream
if we were talking about that.
Now we have /geɪt/.
Open the garden gate, go into the garden.
And our second gait is not a very widely used or understood
word.
It means the way a person walks.
So imagine if I had a wooden leg,
I might have uneven gait, like that.
Our next pair of words is a common mistake.
Native speakers make this mistake frequently and in fact,
many people don't even realise that there is a difference
between the spelling of these words.
So the first word, 'stationary', means not moving--
three syllables.
Always three syllables.
The train is stationary at the station.
So, the difference will become clearer to you now
because the second one can be three syllables,
/ˈsteɪ.ʃən.ri/ or four stationery /ˈsteɪ.ʃən.ə.ri/
This is pens and pencils.
Notice-- notice that the word pen and the word pencil are
spelt with the letter 'E'.
Notice that when we're talking about stationery,
the spelling has an E. So try and make that
stick in your mind so that you know the correct spelling
that you should be using.
Now, we've got pray.
When you pray you put your hands together.
And at least in my mind, the letter 'A'
can look a little bit like a church.
Well, it did when I saw it the first time.
It's not looking so much like a church now.
Whereas our second-- oh, there's mistake here.
Our second type of /preɪ/ is predator and prey.
So when you have a lion that kills a zebra,
the lion is the predator and the prey is a zebra.
Notice that the word predator has an E in it and prey is
spelled with an E. Next we have /weɪst/.
Waste is another word for rubbish.
Throw your waste away; always recycle your waste.
And then we have waist.
She has a slim waist.
Then the last pair here is the number eight
and the past tense verb of to eat.
Eat ate.
Oh, I said /et/, didn't I?
Because this word has two pronunciations.
I can say "ate" like the number or I can say, /et/.
OK.
I already ate my dinner, is what I would say.
So eight, ate or for some people the pronunciation is /et/.
I have a few more pairs to show you just now.
Our next pair is /ˈneɪ.vəl/l.
The first one is your belly button.
So you can say, fluff gets stuck in the navel sometimes.
'Navel' is a more formal or medical word to use rather than
saying 'belly button'.
And then we have the same sound, 'naval', which is to do with
the Navy, which instead of the military on land,
we have the Navy which is on the sea.
And we can remember because the word 'admiral', which is
an officer in the Navy, has two A's in it and the word
'naval' as in the Navy, also has the two A's.
Then we have the word /beɪl/.
In the US, the word 'bail' is used in crime dramas
when a person who has committed a crime
or is suspected of committing a crime
can pay bail, which means give money
to be released from prison.
In the UK, we don't use it in that way.
In our justice system, someone who is on bail
has been released from being at the police station
for a period of time before they have to go back to court.
So we will say someone is on bail; released on bail.
That's British English.
And the second meaning of it is a 'hay bale'.
This is what you will see if you go into the countryside.
Bales of hay.
That's all the grass that's been gathered together.
Then we have 'pain', when you're not feeling well.
You've hurt yourself, you're in pain.
Ouch, I'm in pain.
And then we have 'a pane of glass'.
This is like a sheet of glass.
And we have two words here, which you may be surprised
or you've never noticed before that they
sound the same because the spelling is so different.
We've got 'weight', you can put on weight, you can get fatter.
And then we've got 'wait'.
Wait a long time for your train.
OK.
Thank you for watching this lesson.
Now, you know the difference between all
of these confusing words.
Thank you for watching today's lesson.
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Bye