A,B,C, one, two, three, I'm here to teach you something that I think is really fun,
really cool: homophones. Now, maybe you have seen my other lessons on homophones. If you
haven't, please go take a look. For me, homophones are very exciting because they do one really
cool thing: homophones have the same sound, so for example, "homo" means same, and "phone"
or "phoneme" means sound. So, it is one word or one letter, but it will have another word
that has different spelling and a different meaning. So, it's like you're learning two
pronunciation words - one pronunciation word - but you get two words for vocabulary. It's
like a bonus sale - buy one word, get one free! Oh yeah, buyer beware!
As you can see, I've written some letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, okay? So, A,
the first letter of the alphabet, has the exact same pronunciation, because they're
homophones, as the expression "eh". Now, "eh" can mean a question, like "Eh?". It can also
be an expression to check if the person is listening to you, or, like, a tag question.
In Canada, we're famous for saying "eh" at the end of every sentence. So, I could say,
"It's cold, eh?". "Good day, eh?" So, it can be used as a question or it can be used just
as an interjection.
The next one, the letter B, we have bzzz, the insect that makes honey, so B, bee, and
be. You guys know the verb "to be"? Oh, it has the exact same letter pronunciation as
the letter B, so you might see some very strange text messages coming to you. I'm going to
explain that later, but these will really help you if you get texts, strange texts from
your friends.
C, we have the ability to look (see) and we also have the beautiful ocean called the letter
C (sea).
G, is an expression like "Gee!". It can mean something that you're happy - Gee wiz! Or
Gee! It's an expression of happiness.
I - oh, I, eye, so this can really, really be funny. We can play with homophones and
we can make games of them where an I is an eye.
O - the letter O, it can be an expression like "Oh!" and look at this one. Maybe you
think "What, that's not a homophone.". We have "Owe". Oh-ee! It's not actually Oh-ee,
the pronunciation of this word is "O", and it means you need to pay someone money. So,
you can see sometimes, I.O.U. "I owe you" means you means you need to give someone money
or they need to give you money.
We have the letter P, we have the green vegetable, a very small little guy is a pea, maybe they're
brown, and we also have the urine or the liquid that comes out of us, it's called pee as well.
"I have to go pee!" Oh.
This is more of a British word, but we sometime use it in Canada and America, but it's predominantly
British. Q - Queue, this means a line, so in North America we say, "I had to stand in
line." In British English, they say "I had to stand in the queue.", it's like the letter.
R - Arr! This is what I was telling you about before with the text messages. So, maybe you
get a text message that says, "R U here", and you think "What does that mean?" Well,
R is actually the verb "to be" (are) and U actually means yourself (you).
We have the letter T (tea), a delicious hot beverage, and we also have tee. Do you play
golf? A tee is, basically, a little wooden peg that you would put your golf ball on.
You're not drinking it, don't drink it, you might die.
As I told you before, you have U (you). So, this is a very, very common thing we do in
text messages. We're lazy to write "YOU", so we just put a big U and it has the exact
same pronunciation.
Y (why)? Cool. Y U? Why you? Why asks the question "why?". So now, you can just substitute
the letter Y for the question.
Unfortunately, we don't have homophone or a cool letter for what, or who, or when, sorry
about that. Not all of the letters in English have a homophone, but the ones that do are
really fun and you can play a lot of games with them. Do you know any crazy homophones?
I will see you later, watch this: C U - this 8 can sound like "ate". C U L8R. I'm Ronnie,
A, B, C, one, two, three.