hi there Jennifer from tarle speech with your pronunciation question today's
question is a very common question that I got from Korean ESL speakers and
that's how to differentiate the words kiss a smooch keys what you use to
unlock your door kits something that comes together that you typically put
together and kids a slang term for children so we're going to focus on
vowel length and then the ending cluster combinations okay so this will all make
sense in a second let's take a look at these words let's start with kiss and
keys because those will be the easiest to address so for the word kiss we're
going to say that word with the short I sound ih this vowel looks very similar
to that long e in keys so to make these vowels different for keys your mouth is
going to be smiling and very closed and then for kiss it's going to relax a
little bit and open and when that happens your tongue goes from way up
here for keys and it pops down a little bit for kiss so keys kiss keys kiss the
other difference is that when you end these two words the S is voiceless your
throat is not vibrating versus the Z sound your voice is on and vibrating so
kiss keys and also keep in mind for these two sounds that after you say the
vowel sound you're going to keep your tongue in the same spot do not touch
your teeth and then keep the air moving out of your mouth okay so let's listen
to those two again kiss keys kiss keys now let's move to kits and kids these
words have the short I sound ih so again we know how to do this your
mouth is slightly open and more relaxed and that vowel is short we're going to
end with the T s so to do this you're going to move from that short I sound ih
touch your teeth with the tip of your tongue to the back of your top front
teeth kit and then you're going to pull it back down tsssss and let that air move out
of your mouth okay so ki t ss now for kids all that you're going to do is turn
your voice on for that D and Z sound the tongue is going to do exactly the same
thing so we have kits and kids kits kids so let's give all four of those words a
try kiss-kiss keys keys kits kits kids kids and then I'm going to just
contrast quickly for you kiss kits keys kids so give that a try people will
notice the difference if you found this helpful
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