#22

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How to say her vs. hair

I see her. I see hair.

Yet again, similar words that look the same but don’t sound the same.
The secret is in the vowel.
Check out this week’s video: Her vs. Hair

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, it’s Hadar. And this is the Accent’s Way, your way to finding clarity, confidence, and freedom in English. Let’s talk about ‘her hair’; or more specifically, the word ‘her’ and the word ‘hair’. If they sound the same when you say them, this video is for you.

Let’s begin with a word ‘her’, ‘her’. So, we begin with an H sound. So, release air, it’s like you’re whispering. And then you shift directly to the R – h’r, h’r. To make the R, bring the tongue up, round your lips. The sides of the tongue should be touching the upper teeth – h’r. So, although there is an ‘e’ there, you don’t hear an [ɛ] vowel sound. It’s not ‘hair’, this is hair. h’r. It’s like when you say the word ‘hurt’, ‘hurt’ without the T – ‘hur’. “Tell her”. “Tell ‘er”.

The word ‘hair’ does have an [ɛ] sound there, and you gotta hear it. So we begin with an H, release the air. And then open it to an [ɛ] sound – ‘he-‘. Here, you want to wait with the R, you don’t want to pronounce the R before you hear the pure vowel, the [ɛ] vowel, ‘he-‘. Only then you bring the tongue up for the R: ‘he-r’. And round your lips just a bit, ‘he-r’.

‘Her’ – here your lips are round right from the beginning, because you go to the R directly, ‘Her’. And ‘Hair’. “Look at her hair”. “I love her accessories”. “I love hair accessories”. Do you hear the difference? Her – Hair.

All right, that’s it. Thank you for watching. Go practice to make your pronunciation perfect. And don’t forget to subscribe, if you haven’t yet. I will see you next week in the next video. Bye.


The InFluency Podcast
The InFluency Podcast
198. How to pronounce HER vs. HAIR
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Thank you for watching!
Let me know in the comments below if you ever said one thing, but it sounded like something totally different! 🙂

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