Tear and desert ‘Tear’ and ‘desert’ are words that are pronounced differently to indicate their meaning. The noun tear, which is a drop of fluid from the eye, rhymes with the word dear. ‘She shed a tear when her cat died.’ But when we use ‘tear’ as a verb, meaning to rip, it's pronounced...

Gonna and Gotta In informal English conversation, we often use shorter, versions of common word combinations. One of the most common is ‘gonna’ - short for ‘going to’. When we say the words ‘going to’ very quickly, they run together and sound like ‘gonna’. So ‘Are you going to wash the car...

Practising contractions Pronouncing contractions can be tricky - let’s practise some: ‘I am’ becomes ‘I’m’. I’m I’m going to the beach. I’m going to come with you. ‘You are’ becomes ‘you’re’ You’re You’re going to the beach today, aren’t you? You’re late. ‘She is’ becomes...