How to pronounce WOMAN vs. WOMEN

TRANSCRIPT

Hey it’s Hadar.

Today is March 8 – International Women’s Day

and I figured it would be the perfect day to discuss the difference between a ‘woman’ and ‘women’.

One woman, a few women or many women.

And if you’re watching it not on March 8 then it doesn’t matter

cuz every day is Women’s Day! So let’s get started.

woman

women

Let’s begin with a singular form.

Woman

We start with a W sound. So round your lips and then open it up to an ‘oh’ as in ‘good’.

woh-

You see, so my lips open up a little bit but there’s a little bit rounded.

The jaw drops ‘woh’. The tongue pulls back and it’s kind of relaxed in the back

Think like you have a hot potato in the back of your mouth and you don’t have to touch anything

woh-

and then you move on to the second syllable which is ‘m’n’.

It’s an M sound, a schwa (a reduced vowel) and then an N.

m’n

woh-m’n

The plural form is different in the spelling at the end of the word right.

So instead of ‘a’ you have ‘e’ but it affects the pronunciation of the first syllable.

Now why is that? I have no idea but that’s just how it is.

So instead of saying ‘woh-m’n’ we now say ‘wi-m’n’. alright

It’s the i as in ‘sit’ vowel sound. So from the W you switch to the i sound ‘wi’

and then again the ending is exactly the same: m’n

woh-m’n

wi-m’n

one woman, a few women

Alright, that’s it. Now at the end, I’d like to wish all of you my women friends around the world that

you’ll always give yourself the permission and space to express yourself in English and in your native tongue.

That’s it. Thank you for watching. Have a wonderful day

and have a great year! I’ll see you next week in the next video.

Bye.