hello everyone and welcome back to the English nanny Channel I'm teacher John and I'm here to
help you become great at learning English in today's lesson we will be talking about minimal
pairs this is a lesson that is aimed to help you improve your speaking and also maybe help you
improve your listening first let's talk about what exactly is a minimal pair a minimal pair is a pair
of words or two words that only have one different sound this different sound can be a consonant such
as B or P like the book or put sound or it can be a vowel such as the a and E sound or and some
simple examples are sat and set leaf and leave or think and sink why are minimal pairs helpful for
you as an English student well again they can help you improve your speaking very much for
sounds that often are difficult for ESL students but also they can help you improve your listening
when you listen to the native speaker or someone speaking English it can become easier and easier
to hear a word that is similar to another word but only has one different sound there are many
of them so let's take a look at some of the sounds that are difficult for ESL students and also some
exercises that will help you improve your speaking and your listening let's take a look at the short
I long e and short e sounds many students often struggle with hearing the difference between
these sounds they are a little bit similar but really they are quite different and they often
are used in words that are very different from each so it's important to be able to say these
sounds correctly and also be able to hear the difference so let's do an activity that you can do
by yourself at home but also with your friends or other students so you can practice and help speak
and listen to these different sounds now I will say a word and I want you to choose the correct
answer this word is sit what did you choose did you choose sit seat or set the answer is sit s
i t it is this short I sound and it is a little bit difficult to hear the difference between the
long e sound which is e and the short e sound which is a it's actually a very good idea just
to practice saying these sounds and also listening to the differences so again let's listen to these
three words and so you can hear the difference in each sound sit seat set the three different vowel
sounds and these words are it E & a now let's try the same activity with the same words but
this time I will cover my mouth with a book this is important because you really need to be able to
hear the difference between each of these sounds okay I'm going to say the words and you should
choose the correct answer the word is seat did you choose sit seat or set the correct answer is seat
you can repeat this activity with other students or your friends to improve your speaking and your
listening now let's talk about two other sounds that students also have a difficult time with
these two sounds are s and th the voiced th sound they sound like and now I will read a sentence to
you and after the sentence please pause the video and try to write down the sentence correctly
here's the sentence the doctor sought to help all sick people and thought he really could okay good
job now let's take a look at the correct answer right here you can see the two words that sound
very similar but have very different meanings if you switch the words the sentence does not
make sense so it's very important to be able to say the two different sounds s and th but also
hear it now let's talk about two more sounds that students often have a difficult time with
these two sounds are L and R the sounds are land rough they're very different but also a
little bit similar because some languages don't have a different sound for these two sounds just
one sound now I will read a sentence to you and I want you again to pause the video after I say it
and I want you to try and say the sentence it's okay at first if you have to say the sentence
very slowly that's normal but over time if you practice you should be able to say the sentence
faster and faster even in just five minutes of practicing here's the sentence remember to
pause the video and practice afterwards the alive squirrel arrived with read leaves one
more time I will say the sentence very slowly so you can hear the live squirrel arrived with
wreathed leaves this is called a tongue twister it is a very difficult sentence to say but if you
can practice this over time your pronunciation will improve ok students that's all for today I
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