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Hello, I'm Oli. Welcome to Oxford Online English! In this pronunciation lesson, you can learn
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about sounds and spelling in English. If you just look at a word in English, do you know
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how to pronounce it? Not always. It can be difficult because, in English, the way we
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write a word and the way we say it are not always the same. In this lesson, you can learn
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more about the differences between how we write a word and how we say a word in English.
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Part one: the same letter can have different sounds. Look at three words: phone, clock,
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for. All of these words contain the letter O. Is the letter O pronounced the same way
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in each word? No. In "phone," the letter O has an /əʊ/ sound. In "clock," O has an
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/ɒ/ sound. In "for," O has an /ɔː/ sound. So here, we have three different words, all
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with the same letter, but with three different pronunciations.
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Part two: different letters can have the same sound. Let's look at three more words: big,
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England, busy. OK, some questions: what sound does the I in "big" make? What sound does
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the E in "England" make? And what sound does the U in "busy" make? Listen again: big, England,
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busy. These three letters all have the same sound: /ɪ/. So here, we have three different
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letters, I, E, and U, but they all make one sound, /ɪ/.
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OK, at this point, it should be clear that letters and sounds are not the same thing
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in English. So let's look at this in more detail. Part three: how to count letters and
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sounds. OK, look at three more words: fast, seven, ted. I want you to think about two
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questions: how many letters do these words have, and how many sounds do these words have?
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OK, well, the first question is easy. "Fast" has four letters. "Seven" has five letters,
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and "red" has three letters. What about the second question? How many sounds do the words
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have? Well, actually, "fast" has four sounds. /f/-/ɑː/-/s/-/t/. "Seven" has five sounds:
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/s/-/e/-/v/- -/n/. "Red" has three sounds: /r/-/e/-/d/.
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So all of these words have the same number of letters and sounds. "Fast" has four letters
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and four sounds. "Seven" has five letters and five sounds. "Red" has three letters and
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three sounds. That makes these words easy to pronounce because you see the word, one
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letter equals one sound. It's easy. But are all English words like this? No, most English
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words are not like this. This is what makes English pronunciation difficult.
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So let's look at this again. Part four: letters and sounds are not always the same thing.
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OK, listen to three more words: coffee, teacher, shopping. Think about the same questions we
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asked before: how many letters does each word have, and how many sounds does each word have?
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So, "coffee" has six letters, but how many sounds? Just four. The two Fs together make
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one /f/ sound, and the two Es together make one /i/ sound. So there are four sounds. /k/-/ɒ/-/f/-/i/.
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Teacher has seven letters. How many sounds? Four, again. So the two letters EA make one
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/iː/ sound. The two letters CH make one /tʃ/ sound, and the two letters, ER, make one /ə/
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sound. So there are four sounds in the word: /t/-/iː/-/tʃ/-/ə/. "Shopping" has eight
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letters. How many sounds? Five. S and H together make one /ʃ/ sound. The two Ps together make
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one /p/ sound. The letters NG make one /ŋ/ sound. So that leaves five sounds: /ʃ/-/ɒ/-/p/-/ɪ/-/ŋ/.
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Often, a word has more letters than sounds because two or more letters together can make
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one sound. Sometimes three or four letters together can make one sound. For example,
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look at the word "four," F-O-U-R. In this word, the three letters, 'OUR', make one sound:
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/ɔː/. Let's look at three more words: one, use, Europe. Same questions: How many letters?
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How many sounds? Well, let's look at "one." "One" has three letters and three sounds,
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so that's easy, right? But what are the three sounds? /w/-/ʌ/-/n/. Where does that /w/
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sound come from? What about the other words? Well, "use" has three sounds, again, /j/-/ʊː/-/z/.
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Again, you can see a /j/ sound, which is pronounced, but which isn't obviously in the written word.
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"Europe" has five sounds: /j/-/ʊə/-/r/-/ə/-/p/. Once again, you can see there's a /j/ sound
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in the pronunciation, which isn't written clearly in the word. So to review: very often,
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words have more letters than sounds because, very often, two or more letters together can
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produce one sound. Sometimes there are extra sounds which are not obviously written, but
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which are pronounced when you say the word.
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Okay. Let's do some practice together. I'm going to give you five words: apple, because,
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student, cheap, Wednesday. Think about the same questions: how many letters do these
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words have, and how many sounds do these words have? If you want, pause the video and think
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about your answer. We can start again when you're ready and look at the answers together.
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OK, ready? Let's check. "Apple" has five letters and three sounds: /æ/-/p/-/l/. "Because"
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has seven letters and five sounds: /b/-/ɪ/-/k/-/ɒ/-/z/. "Student" has seven letters and eight sounds.
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How's this possible? Let's look: /s/-/t/-/j/-/ʊː/-/d/-/e/-/n/-/t/. Eight. There's an extra /j/ before the /ʊː/,
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which again is not obvious from the spelling, but it's in the pronunciation. "Cheap" has
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five letters and three sounds. /tʃ/-/iː/-/p/. Wednesday, nine letters, six sounds: /w/-/e/-/n/-/z/-/d/-/eɪ/.
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OK, that's the end of the lesson. Thank you very much for watching. You can see more of
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our free lessons on our website, www.oxfordonlineenglish.com. In the video description, you can see a link
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to the full version of this lesson. The full version includes a quiz and the full text,
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so you can review and practice this topic some more. But that's all. Thanks again for
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watching. I'll see you next time. Bye bye!