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 the two words: angry and hungry. Angry and hungry. I often hear my students confuse these two words. So let’s break down the differences between those two.

Let’s begin, actually, with the end- ‘gry’. We start with a G sound and then we move to an R. Lift the tongue up, round your lips: ‘gr’, ‘gry’. And then open it to an ‘ee’ as in “see” – ‘gry’. The beginning is different. In the word ‘angry’ as “I’m angry at you”, the vowel at the beginning is basically an A as in cat sound – A.

And then we move to an NG sound: ‘an’. But in American English, when the A as in cat appears before an NG sound, it reduces to an ‘ei’ sound: ‘ein(g)-gry’, ‘ein(g)-gry’. All right? So again, long ‘a’, getting to an NG sound: the tongue goes up in the back, and the air is coming out through the nose. ‘ein(g)-gry’, and then a ‘gry’ sound – ‘ein(g)-gry’.

The word ‘hungry’ is a different. Here we begin with an H sound, all right, it’s like I’m whispering. And then it’s a reduced ‘uh’ sound – huh, huh. It’s like a schwa – huh – ‘huhn(g)-gry’,  ‘huhn(g)-gry’. You hear the difference? angry – hungry. If I reduce the ‘h’ in the word hungry, it’s going to sound like this, listen: ‘ein(g)-gry’ – ‘uhn(g)-gry’. Pretty similar, right?

So we want to distinguish the two, therefore the H sound is pretty important. So again, just release air before the word “hungry”. It’s like the H in the word “Hi”, right? You don’t say “‘ai’, how are you?”, you say “‘hai’, how are you?” So you say ‘huhngry’ and ‘eingry”. “I’m pretty hungry right now”. “I’m angry at you”. Good.

Now, did you know that there was a new word in American English, and it is “hangry”? Hangry. It’s actually a combination of the two words: angry and hungry. And do you know what it means? I bet you do, because it’s a very valid feeling that you feel when you’re angry because you’re hungry. And that’s what I feel right now. So, I’m going to go and eat something, and you are going to subscribe to my YouTube channel in the meantime. And that’s it.

Thank you for watching. I will see you next week in the next video. Bye.