So in English sometimes verbs and nouns which have the same spelling can be pronounced differently.
Yes, it's true. So for this lesson what I want you to do is record yourself saying the
sentences I'm going to give you in a moment. Trust me, doing this will really help your
pronunciation so do do it. So switch on the voice recorder on your smartphone or on your
computer and if you've got a cassette recorder press the read button.. Old school cool respect
that. Prepare yourself and I'll be back shortly.
Hello and welcome to LetThemTalk the channel that goes deeper into everything about the
English language.
Now In English verbs and nouns can have different forms. There are thousands of examples of
this. A LOAN is a noun TO LEND is the verb, A DELIVERY is a noun TO DELIVER is a verb.
but sometimes verbs and nouns can have the same form but the pronunciation is different
and this is what we're going to be looking at today.
So let's start with some one syllable words H-O-U-S-E. How do you pronounce that? HOUSE /haʊs/
ah yes if it's a noun but if it's a verb it's TO HOUSE /haʊz/
To house means to provide a space or accommodation for something.
So let's look at some examples for this. "I live in a big house"
"The roman statue is housed in a museum."
U-S-E As a noun it's USE /juːs/
and USE as a verb /juːz/
"The use /juːs/ of smartphones is forbidden in the classroom"
"Can I use /juːz/ your computer?"
The next word C-L-O-S-E
but here we are comparing a verb and an adjective/adverb "the station is close /kləʊs/"
as a verb "please close /kləʊz/ the door. "
Now with two syllable words the NOUN stress is on the first syllable and the verb stress
is on the second syllable Let's look at some examples
INsult noun inSULT verb "He called me a cowardly flea ridden gorilla.
What an INsult. " "It's not a good idea to inSULT the teacher"
CONvert noun conVERT verb "I was sceptical but now I'm a CONvert"
"He tried to conVERT me to a vegetarian diet."
INcrease noun inCREASE verb "There has been a big INcrease in the use
of electric cars" "As a company we need to inCREASE our sales"
PROduce noun proDUCE verb "This cheese is PROduce of France"
"We are going to proDUCE a new toy for the American market"
REfuse noun reFUSE verb now notice the double change here the syllable
stress and the pronunciation change USE /juːs/ - USE /juːz/ that we saw earlier
"During the strike piles of REfuse /ˈrɛfjuːs/ were left on the street"
"I reFUSE /rɪˈfjuːz/ to give back the money"
REfuse by the way is a more formal word for rubbish. Notice also that the verb and the
noun can sometimes have very different meanings.
Ok, I did tell at the beginning of this video to get your voice recorder ready. Have you
done that...really? Ok great now what I'm going to do is write a sentence and what you
have to do is say it and record it correctly. Now even if you don't know the word if you
know if it's a verb or a noun you then you should know how to pronounce it correctly.
Ok let's go.
Noun PREsent; "He gave her a PREsent for her birthday"
Verb preSENT: "I'll preSENT the results at the annual meeting"
Noun: CONduct "The CONduct of the student was unacceptable."
Verb: conDUCT "They're going to conDUCT an enquiry"
Noun: CONtest: "He won the CONtest for best photograph"
Verb: conTEST "The losing candidate plans to conTEST the resultS of the election"
Noun: PROgress: "Although our PROgress was slow we continued into the night"
Verb: ProGRESS: "These lessons will really help you to proGRESS"
Noun: UPset: "The defeat of the champion was a major UPset"
Verb: upSET: "I'm upSET by your behaviour. "
Now put your voice recorder on pause. but there are many more so in your own time make
sentences with these words.
Ok good luck and if you do that you're going to make PROgress really quickly.
And stay mellow and see you next time.