Hi guys, welcome to the lesson you're watching me on Let's Talk my name is Michelle. Okay
tell me, how do you pronounce this word, should it be success or success? Are you confused
between the correct pronunciation? Well like this we have many other words in English which
really confuse us about their pronunciation and sometimes we think we are speaking the
right thing but only a very fluent speaker of English can understand that what we are
saying is actually wrong. So if you want to make your pronunciation just perfect and up
to the mark, then watch this complete lesson with me today, where I am going to talk about
words which have a confusing pronunciation. So are you ready, then let's get started.
Okay so we have these words with us, some of these are very common words and the other
words are advanced vocabulary words. So in this lesson today you are not just learning
pronunciation, you are also learning advanced vocabulary and words with their meanings and
examples, so keep watching. Let's start with the first one, ‘chaos’. Okay so first
of all let's find out what's the meaning of this word. Chaos means a lot of confusion,
okay? So what will happen if all the animals in a zoo escape, that's a lot of chaos, a
lot of confusion. Or think about yourself in school when the bell rings, when the day
is over, all the students gush out of the class and you have a lot of chaos which means
there is no order and there is a lot of confusion. So this is what you mean by chaos, now let's
find out how do we pronounce this word, okay? KAY-oss. So as you can see that I have written
a part of the word in bold letters which is KAY, the reason I have done this is because
you stress this part of the word more than this part, so you don't say kay-OSS, you say
KAY-oss. Please repeat it after me KAY-oss, yes and just to help you a little bit more,
sometimes the stress in the word changes. For example let's look at this word ‘chaotic’.
You could say that this is a very chaotic school, which is an adjective, okay? So chaotic
is pronounced in a different way, let me write it for you. Okay, so as you can see that there
are different letters here which are written in caps lock and those are ‘OT’, so you
will say this as kay-OT-ic, chaotic. So what's happening is, the stress in the word is changing
from the first syllable to the second syllable. Okay like this we have many other words in
English where the stress changes when the word changes. Okay, now let's look at the
next one, the next word is ‘debris’. Yes you heard me right here, ‘S’ is silent
but before we go on to the pronunciation, let's find out what this word means, so debris
is basically the remains after a construction or after an earthquake or after a disaster.
So for example if there is an earthquake in a city what you will find is a lot of broken
material, that broken material which is of no use is called debris, the remaining material
or you will see that at a construction site when a building is built the remaining material
which is of no use is called debris. So this is the word for you and how would you use
this in a sentence? You could say that I could see debris after the earthquake, which means
you could see the remains. Alright, now coming on to the pronunciation, as I told you that
‘S’ is silent in this word, so we would pronounce it as, so as you can see that the
second part of the word is stressed and the first part is not. So listen to me very carefully,
if I stress the first part the word becomes ‘DE-bri’, alright but if I stress the
second part the word becomes ‘de-BREE’ which is the correct pronunciation of this
word, okay? Now with this we move forward, the next word we have is, ‘subtle’. Okay
now you already guessed that there is one letter in the word which is silent and that
is ‘B’. Okay now to find out the meaning of this word subtle means something which
is very faint, I mean something which you cannot notice. So if you see a person who
is smiling just a little bit, you can't notice, you're not sure, it looks like they are smiling,
so you could say that, oh she had a subtle smile on her face, which means faint or something
which is not fully visible, okay? So this is what subtle means something which is very
less and very difficult to notice. Okay now if you want to pronounce this, okay? You would
pronounce it as, so this word also has two parts and here the first part stressed so
the word is not ‘suh-TL’ the word is SUH-tl and the word is also not ‘sub-tle’ which
a lot of English speakers tend to pronounce, learners actually who are learning the language.
So you would say SUH-tl, okay? Alright, now with this we move forward and look at the
next very common word. We all know the meaning of ‘success’, right? Success means achievement,
when you achieve something in life or when you get something good in your life. So you
could say that, she is very successful for her age, or you could say that, this is a
lot of success for this age, which means too much success. Right, so now we look at the
pronunciation of this word more carefully, this word has two parts, okay and we would
pronounce it as… right so I started my lesson with this I said is it ‘SUK-ses’ or ‘suk-SES’
now can you guess it, as you can see that the second part of the word is stressed so
the word is pronounced as ‘suk-SES’ and not ‘SUK-ses’, alright? So the next time
you say this word, say it as ‘suk-SES’. Okay now with this we look at the next one,
which is a slightly bigger word and might even scare you, because you might think how
to pronounce this word. Well just to tell you, even if it's a big word or a small word,
only one part of the word is stressed, okay? Definitely this word has more parts than this
word but only one part will be stressed, I'll tell you how. First let's find out the meaning
of this word, this word is called as ‘circumstance’ and circumstance means someone's situation,
okay? So you could say that, ‘we both wanted to marry, but this circumstances did not allow’,
which means the situation did not allow you to get married to someone, alright? That's
what we mean by this word a lot of English learners tend to call it, ‘circum-chance’
which is wrong. We don't have any ‘CH’ in the world, we only have ‘S’ so the
word is actually circumstance and not circum-chance. Okay now when we talk about the pronunciation
in more detail, this word is actually pronounced as… so as you can see that, all these words
have two parts to them, okay one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two except this one which has
three parts. The same way circumstance has three parts to it and in these three parts
the stressed part is the first part. So you say ‘SIR-cum-stans’, okay? Repeat it after
me, ‘SIR-cum-stans’, wonderful! You've got it right. Okay now with this we move to
the next word. Now this word is a very peculiar and a very confusing word because you will
often hear two pronunciations for this word, because it has two different meanings. So
when we talk about the meaning, when you call this as ‘content’ that is a noun, which
means what is something made up of, okay? Like the chapters in a book are called the
content, so you would say, what is the content of this book? Which means which are the chapters
of this book. Or else you can pronounce this word as ‘content’ okay now when you say
content it means satisfied, okay? So if you say that I am content with my life, which
means you are satisfied with your life, okay? And if you want to ask that to somebody you
would say, are you content with your life, okay? Now let's look at the pronunciation
more carefully so as I told you it can be pronounced in two different ways, either it
can be ‘KAWN-tent’ or… okay now since you are so smart I know that you have already
grasped it that in this word, in the two different pronunciations the word stress changes and
that's why they are pronounced in a different way so in the first word we stress on the
first part and we say ‘KAWN-tent’, okay? And in the second one, we stress on the second
part and that's why we say ‘kuhn-TENT’, because the first part becomes much softer,
good! So ‘KAWN-tent’ and ‘kuhn-TENT’, wonderful! Now let's move to the next word
this is a very useful word in English it's pronounced as ‘epitome’, okay? Epitome,
this means a perfect example. So if you, want to tell that somebody is a perfect example
of something, you would use this word. So you could say that, ‘mother Teresa is an
epitome of generosity or kindness’, okay? Now let's look carefully at its pronunciation,
this word is pronounced as, ‘e-PI-to-mee’, okay? So in this word we have four syllables,
like in circumstance we have three, in this one we have four and here the stressed part
is the second syllable, okay? And it's pronounced as ‘e-PI-to-mee’ alright? ‘e-PI-to-mee’
and to remember this better you could just remember ‘to-mee’ that this word has ‘to-mee’
in the end and it's almost pronounced like ‘to-mee’, okay? So ‘e-PI-to-mee’ for
you which means a perfect example, great! Now we have the next word, this word is called
as, ‘hierarchy’. So this word is often used in organizations and companies. So if
you are in your company and obviously you will have different positions, like you will
have positions from the sales person, right? To the manager and from the manager to the
CEO, so this order of people, from the lowest to the highest in a company or in an organization
is called hierarchy, okay? And if you want to use it in a sentence you could say that,
‘I have been promoted to a new position and that's a part of corporate hierarchy’,
which means you move from one position to the next position. Alright, now when we look
at this word’s pronunciation, it's really easy to remember let me tell you why, you
have a special word in this, so this is how this word is pronounced, you stress here on
the first syllable and like, epitome this also has four parts okay, and you stress on
the first part and the first part is ‘HI’, yes so that's how you start this word, you
don't have to call it hi-er-key, because you might think ‘hi’ might be you know ‘he’
which it is not. It's actually ‘HI’, so ‘HI-er-ar-kee’, hierarchy. Okay now we
look at the next word which is also a very important word in English it's called as,
what do you think it's called as? Do you want to give it a try? Okay this looks like ‘para’,
right? It looks like ‘para’ to me as well. Now what about the second part, what does
this look like? Is it ‘Digm’ ‘dim’ or ‘dime’? Well this part is ‘dime’
and this word is actually pronounced as paradigm. Okay, now what does this word mean? So paradigm
basically means a model. A model for something. So you could say that, ‘Microsoft is the
paradigm for future computer softwares’, which means it's the correct model for computer
softwares in the future, right? So that's how you would use it. If you want to use it
in a sentence, now if we talk about the pronunciation, let's look at it, so this is how this word
is pronounced the stressed part is the first part of the word which is ‘PA’ okay so
you say ‘PAra-dime’. So when you say the first part, there is air coming out of your
mouth and you put in more energy when you say the first part so ‘PAra-dime’ d-i-m-e
dime, like you say dice, that's the same way you say dime, dime or dice. So that's a good
way to remember this one, right? You can remember it from dice. Okay now that we are already
talking about games, let's also talk about ‘gauge’. Okay so the way we pronounce
game, is the same way we pronounce this word which is gauge. Let me just write how we pronounce
this, so like you say game, that's how you say gauge. Now the interesting part about
this word is, it has only one part that's why the entire word is in caps lock, it has
not got any more parts and there is no tension about where to stress, where not to stress.
So you would simply say ‘GUAGE’ the same way you say, game, okay? So what do we mean
by gauge? Gauge means to guess, okay so G for guess, G for gauge, wow! It's really easy
to remember this one. So when you're trying to guess something, you're trying to gauge
something. For example it's really easy to gauge people's character by their actions.
Which means it's easy to understand or guess about their character through their actions.
So this is gauge for you. Now let's look at the next word which looks very strange to
me, does it look strange to you? Well like how would you pronounce this? It's got ‘G’,
it's got ‘U’, ‘seeg’ ‘segue’? Well it should be ‘segue’ but since I
did not create English, so it's not ‘segue’. It's actually pronounced as, ‘SE-gway’.
So in this word, the first part is stressed. This word is actually ‘SE-gway’, okay?
‘SE-gway’, so you stress on the first part and you say ‘SE-gway’. Now you must
be like okay I got the pronunciation but what's the meaning? So ‘segue’ is basically a
transition, okay? When you move from one part to the other part, smoothly that's called
‘segue’ and it's a verb, so it could also be ‘segued’. So let me give you an example
you could say that after the presentation she's ‘segued’ into the closing ceremony,
which means she moved into the closing ceremony. So a transition or movement from one part
to the another part. Alright, now the next one is a very common word, we all know what
a refrigerator is, where we keep the items to stay cool in summers, okay? But the pronunciation
is kind of peculiar and very confusing to a lot of learners. So let me write it for
you here… sorry, okay, so let's just look at this carefully, the first part is not pronounced
as ‘reh’, it's not refrigerator you would say ‘ri-FRIG-uh-rey-ter’, okay? Now this
word has five syllables, it has five parts, so this is the maximum we have touched so
far, we've seen two, three, four and now this is, a word with five parts and here the second
part is stressed that's why it's written in caps lock so you'll say ‘ri-FRIG-uh-rey-ter’,
please repeat it after me, and when you try to say the ‘F’ make sure you bite your
lower lip with your upper teeth, ‘ri-FRIG-uh-rey-ter’, okay? ‘ri-FRIG-uh-rey-ter’. Well I think
you're really smart. Okay now we look at the next word which is ‘differentiate’. So
if you have been in two academics or studies you must be having a question in your exams
or in your classes, ‘differentiate between this and this’. Which means, tell the difference.
So to differentiate means to tell the difference, like differentiate between the past and the
present, so tell the differences between these two. Now talking about the pronunciation this
word is actually pronounced as ‘di-fu-REN-shee-yet’, okay? So as you can see this word also is
a five syllable word like, refrigerator and here we don't stress on the second syllable,
we stress on the third syllable. So the word actually becomes ‘di-fu-REN-shee-yet’.
Yes, many of us call it as differentiate or differentiate but the word is actually ‘di-fu-REN-shee-yet’,
okay? So the stresses on ‘REN’, okay? So this is how you pronounce this word. Now
with this too, we move forward to another common business word, and it's a huge confusion
to pronounce. This word this word is actually pronounced as ‘entrepreneur’ this means
a person who is heading a business or who has started a business, okay? A person at
a higher position in the business who's running it. So the person who is running the business
is called an entrepreneur. Let's look at the pronunciation of this word… okay, so in
this word, again we have four syllables and not five and in this word the stressed syllable,
is the last part of the word, okay? The final part. Just repeat these parts after me ‘ahn-truh-pruh-NOR’,
so the stress is on the last part. Let's do it again ‘ahn-truh-pruh-NOR’, so it's
entrepreneur and if you want to use it in a sentence you could say that, ‘the entrepreneurs
saw this as a potential market’, great! Now we have the last word for history students,
because I love history, so I decided to pick a word from history, ‘archaeological’.
Something which comes from history or dates back to a very long time, like fossils, you
know, things for which you have a proof now. Those things are called archaeological. Now
how do we pronounce this? Let's see that, so ‘ar’ remains ‘ar-kee-uh-LOG-i-kehl’,
well and this is our final word with the maximum number of syllables and when you learn this
word, you should make sure that you're a good speaker of English if you can pronounce this
right, because this has got six syllables, so it goes ‘ar-kee’, okay? It's not ‘kay’,’ar-kay’…
many of us say, ‘kay’ but it's actually ‘kee’ ‘ar-kee-uh-LOG-i-kehl’. So this
catch here is that, this word is stressed on ‘LOG’, okay? So the next time you say
it, you'll not say archaeological you say ‘ar-kee-uh-LOG-i-kehl’, okay? Please repeat
that after me ‘ar-kee-uh-LOG-i-kehl’. Okay, now that you've got it right, you are
a fluent speaker of English, because you are pronouncing a word with six syllables absolutely
correctly. So thank you so much for watching this lesson with me, I hope today you have
clearly understood the correct pronunciation for some difficult English words. So thank
you so much for staying with me, I'll see you guys soon, bye-bye