I'm going to focus on two consonant sounds in English.
The /f/ sound and the /h/ sound.
These are very important sounds in English, so I want you to be able to pronounce them
correctly.
Let's start with two example words.
The first example word is the word ‘fat’.
Can you hear the /f/ sound?
‘fat’ Now, the second word is ‘hat’.
This time it's an /h/ sound, ‘hat’.
‘fat’ ‘hat’
Can you hear the difference?
Well if you keep watching, we are going to practice together.
And I promise you by the end of this video, you will pronounce them correctly.
So keep watching.
Before we learn about these two consonant sounds the f /f/ sound and the /h/ sound in
English, you need to know about the I.P.A. spelling.
It's very important.
You can also watch me, and how I move my mouth, and of course always try to repeat after me.
I know you can make these sounds, guys, so let's do it together.
Now, let's first learn how to make the /f/ sound in English.
So it's an unvoiced sound.
You are not going to use your voice.
You're not going to feel any vibration in your throat.
And what you're going to do is put your teeth against your bottom lip,
and you're going to push out some air through your teeth and bottom lip, okay.
/f/ Please try and do it.
Repeat after me.
/f/ /f/
/f/ Let's practice with the word ‘fat’.
Please repeat after me.
‘fat’ ‘fat’
‘fat’ Good.
Let's now practice producing the sound /h/ in English.
So as you can see your mouth is wide open.
It's voiceless as well, so no… no sound.
No vibration.
Mouth wide open and you're going to push out the air with your throat.
It has to come from down there, so… /h/
Please watch my mouth, try to repeat after me.
/h/ /h/
/h/ Let's practice with the word ‘hat’.
Please repeat after me.
‘hat’ ‘hat’
‘hat’ Good.
Let's now practice with minimal pairs; two words they sound very very much alike but
the sounds are actually different and they are very good for you to hear the difference
between the two sounds.
But first, let's practice the sounds themselves.
Please watch my mouth and repeat after me.
First the /f/ sound.
/f/ /f/
/f/ Now the /h/ sound.
/h/ /h/
/h/ Let's do the two sounds together.
Please repeat after me.
/f/ /h/
And now let's take our words.
Please repeat after me, guys.
‘fat’ ‘hat’
Good job.
Okay, guys.
Let's go through minimal pairs together.
Please watch how I move my mouth and repeat after me.
Let's get started.
faced haste
fad had
fail hail
fair hair
fall hall
fang hang
fare hare
farm harm
fart heart
fate hare
fear hear
fed head
fee he
feed heed
feel heel
fees he's
feet heat
fell hell
fence hence
fey hey
fight height
fill hill
fir her
fit hit
five hive
fizz his
foal whole
foam home
foe hoe
foes hoes
fog hog
force horse
found hound
four haw
fowl howl
funky hunky
funny honey
furl hurl
phase haze
phone hone
Great job, guys.
Let's now practice with sentences containing these consonant sounds.
The first sentence is: ‘Please feel her fur heel.’
Please repeat after.
‘Please feel her fur heel.’
The second sentence: ‘The whole foal has fair hair.’
Please repeat after me.
‘The whole foal has fair hair.’
And finally: ‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’
Please repeat.
‘He'd feed the hog in the fog.’
Very good.
Let's move on.
Let's now move on to listening practice.
I'm now going to show you two words.
I will say one of the two words, and I want you to listen very carefully and
to tell me if this word is, ‘a)’ or ‘b)’
Let's get started.
Let's start with our first words.
You see you have word ‘a’ word ‘b’.
Now which one do I say?
Listen.
‘hair’ One more time.
‘hair’ Was this ‘a’ or ‘b’?
‘b’, hair.
‘a’ would be pronounced ‘fair’.
Our next two words.
Listen to me, guys.
‘funny’ ‘funny’
It's ‘a’, ‘funny’.
‘b’ would be ‘honey’.
‘horse’ ‘horse’
‘It's ‘b’, ‘horse’.
‘a’ is ‘force’.
What about this one?
Listen.
‘hence’ ‘hence’
It's ‘b’ guys, ‘hence’.
‘a’ is fence.
‘fog’ ‘fog’
It's ‘a’, ‘fog’.
‘b’ would be ‘hog’.
Listen to me.
‘fowl’ ‘fowl’
It's ‘a’, ‘fowl’.
‘b’ is ‘howl’.
‘feet’ ‘feet’
‘a’?
‘b’?
What do you think?
It's ‘a’ guys, ‘feet’.
‘b’ is heat.
‘hear’ ‘hear’
It’s ‘b’ guys, ‘hear’.
‘a’ would be pronounced ‘fear’.
‘fall’ ‘fall’
It's ‘a’ guys, ‘fall’.
‘b’ is ‘hall’.
And our last two words.
Now listen to me.
‘haste’ ‘haste’
It's ‘b’, ‘haste’.
‘a’ would be ‘faced’.
Great job, guys.
I know you now understand the difference between this /f/ sound and this /h/ sound in English.
Of course it takes a lot more practice to be able to master these sounds but you can
do it.
So keep practicing, you will also train your ear to hear the differences between these
sound.
And obviously watch my other pronunciation videos.
I promise you they will help you improve your skills.
See you next time.
Thank you so much for watching, guys.
If you've liked it, show me your support, click ‘like’, subscribe to the channel,
put your comments below, and share this video.
See you.