Hey, welcome to the InFluency Podcast. I’m Hadar, and this is episode number 28. And today I have a short and sweet pronunciation lesson for you.

Hey there. I hope you are doing well. I’m recording this from home today because I’m in quarantine. We are in the midst of the COVID-Corona slash pandemic global crisis, and it’s been quite a ride. What can I tell you? I know that you are probably feeling the same way.

It’s funny, I’m speaking with people from all around the world, and it feels like it’s the first time that I know exactly what they’re going through, and they know exactly what I’m going through. So, so crazy.

Anyway, I’m recording this from home. This is why I’m going to make it a little short because my two girls are out there and one of them is sick. So I haven’t gotten much sleep and I’m going to keep it short so I can spend some time with her.

But I still wanted to make this quick intro because just to check in and to see how you’ve been. And to tell you that I actually planned to record a different podcast episode today, about the challenge that we had – the Loud and Proud Fluency challenge, the Loud and Proud English Fluency challenge. That was remarkable.

And I have a bunch of things that I want to share with you, things that I’ve learned and that I saw. And, um, it was supposed to come out today, but because of how things were so crazy, and we were so busy with two course launches. We just completed registration for Accent Makeover, which was amazing. And, um, before that, I had English Teachers Academy, so I felt like I needed to catch up on things in my life and my family.

So I decided to bring this to you today. Which is a fun pronunciation pair that people always get confused. I have a drill, a TH drill, that I always do in the second lesson when I teach. In one of the words in that exercise, is one of the words that I talk about today, and I think 99% of my students, no matter what their first language is, they get it wrong. For a reason, but they get it wrong.

So this is why I decided to make that video and to bring that audio, the audio version of that video to you today. So let’s listen to how to pronounce ‘south’ versus – drum roll please – ‘southern’. Let’s listen.

Hey there. It’s Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me. And today we are going to talk about the two words: ‘South’ versus ‘Southern’. How to pronounce them, and what are the common mistakes that people make when pronouncing those two words.

Let’s begin with the easier word to pronounce – ‘South’. Easier, not necessarily easy because it has a TH in it and an S. So we begin with an S sound and then it’s the “au” as a ‘now’. “sau-” and you close it with a ‘th’ – “sauth”.

Notice that the “au” as in ‘now’ starts with a front vowel -‘a’, it’s actually the ‘a’ as in the word ‘cat’. “sa”, “sa”, it’s like you’re about to say ‘sat’, but instead of the T you go into an ‘u’ sound – “sau”, close it with a TH, “sauth”, “sauth”. That’s the first word.

A common confusion is when people try to overcompensate for the TH or overpronounce it, and then they may pronounce a TH instead of an S unintentionally – “thauth” “thauth”. Or put an S instead of the final TH – “saus” “saus”. Or “saut” – just a T, or an F -“sauf”. All the possible substitutions for the TH sound. So make sure you stick the tongue out for the TH – “sauth”, th-th-th and release air.

Now, the word ‘Southern’ is obviously derived from the word ‘South’, but it doesn’t sound like it, okay. So it is not, and I repeat, it is not “sauθern”, it’s a different word. The only similar thing we have here is the S at the beginning, ‘s’. Other than that, everything is different.

Instead of “au” as in ‘South’, we have ‘uh’ as in ‘cup’, as in ‘sun’ – “suh”. And then it’s not a soft voiceless TH /θ/, it’s a voiced TH /ð/, as in the word ‘they’ – “suh-th’rn”. And then you pull the tongue in for the ‘ur’ sound – “suh-th’rn”. Because here we have a schwa sound, there is no vowel really before the TH and the R. So you want to treat it as, as if there is nothing there really – “th’r” “th’r”, “suh-th’r”.

And then, if it’s not challenging enough, let’s add an N at the end – “th’rn”, “suh-th’rn”. ‘Southern’. ‘South’ – “let’s go to the South”, or ‘Southern’ – “the Southern shore” or “Southern comfort”, “Southern comfort”. ‘South’ – ‘Southern’. Okay?

So practice each word quite a few times until you kind of like overcome the pronunciation challenges and you pronounce those two words smoothly. And then create two sentences, one for each word, and put them in the comments below.

And right after that, think of other confusing words and share them with us as well. And maybe I’ll make a video about them – how to pronounce your challenging word.

Okay. That’s it. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked this video, don’t forget to like it and to subscribe, if you haven’t yet. And right after that, come on over to my website and check it out because there’s a lot of great and free stuff for waiting for you there to download and to improve your fluency, and confidence, and pronunciation in English.

Have a beautiful week and I will see you in the next video. Bye.