Accent Training Podcast

#133 How to Pronounce Close v Close v Clothes

September 08, 2022 Pat Season 6 Episode 133
Accent Training Podcast
#133 How to Pronounce Close v Close v Clothes
Show Notes Transcript

Confusing the S, Z and Th sounds is a very common difficulty for English learners from all different languages. Listen closely as we consider the pronunciations of "close" (adjective / adverb), "close" (verb), and "clothes" (like what you're wearing).

The differences between these fricative, fading words endings are subtle, but with focus and patience, you'll better identify these difficulties, and learn to take control of them for yourself.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the accent training podcast, a podcast where I teach you to use the sounds of the American accent for yourself. My name is pat. I'm an accent coach from Toronto, Canada, living in Mexico. And I am here to teach you to hear, recognize, and repeat the sounds and patterns of the American accent. Today. I've got a very easy topic to discuss one that is not gonna take up a lot of our time, but is going to be worth your time. We are going to talk about three words here, my friends, three words, which are very close in pronunciation. Now, I don't want you to close your mind to this because you may already have a close idea of what the difference is. Our topic of today are the words close, close, and closed won't work anymore. Now, two of these words have the exact same spelling, close and closed. We have close C L O S E an adjective, meaning a short distance away from something it's close to us when things are not far apart, they are close. Now with the same spelling, C L O S E. We also have the word close, close. As in the verb, the action to close something, Close the door. Or what time do you close or at a local store? You could ask. What time do you close? What time do you close? We close, close to 10:00 PM. Whoa. There's an interesting phrase. We close, close to 10:00 PM. Now. I'm sure you're hearing the difference between these two words, close and close, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is yet. Let me explain close as an adjective or an adverb to be near something uses a regular S sound on the ending. Close, close S is a ative sound. This means it flows out. And when a word ends in a ative sound, then that ative sound kind of fades away. Close. We're close by close. When we make the letter S something important is that you have the tip of your tongue, not behind your teeth, not above your teeth, but that when you go, the tip of your tongue is below your teeth. It's feeling your gums just below your teeth, the middle of your tongue, kind of curls forward to allow the tip of your tongue to touch your gums below your bottom teeth. This creates a small gap between the middle of our tongue and our top teeth. And we just push air through that Close, close focus on that tongue position. Now this contrasts with the word close, which is also ative flowing when we pronounce it, but it has voice. That's the difference. It's not a close, but it's a closed, closed the door. I thought you closed it closed it closed. Voiced in its sound. This is a Z sound. It's an S spelling, but this sound is a Z close flowing with voice. The Z uses the exact same position as the S the tip of my tongue is touching my gums just below my bottom teeth in the middle of my tongue is curling up towards my top teeth, creating a little space that I can let voice kind of buzz on through. Oh, oh, this is close clothes. Let's put those side by side now. Close, Close, close, close. Notice how that ative sound just trails off at the end. It's not a close, close releasing an extra burst of sound, but rather it's fading getting weak, close, close, close. The next word that we have to consider is a tougher one. In terms of positioning, it'll take a little bit of focus and practice for most folks listening. I'm sure, but it's most effective when it comes to controlling your ative sounds C L O T H E S clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, put your clothes on clothes on Z. I'm folding some clothes. I need to wash my dirty clothes. Here's what's happening. It's a very subtle movement, and it involves the th and the ES. I have a quick moment where the tip of my tongue touches my front top teeth. The tip of my tongue just lightly touches the back of them. Just very lightly without making any pressure without building up any voice or air. It doesn't burst out like a, the, the, but it just lightly flows much like the S and the Z. You hear that th sound it's different from the Z, but it's very subtle in the difference. Now, like I said, I have the tip of my tongue, very, very lightly touching the backs of my teeth. This positioning allows for a lightning quick transition from the th to the Z.

Speaker 2:

This, this is,

Speaker 1:

Oh, this is, oh, this is clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes. Like I said, that's a tricky transition. It's a very specific difficulty. And it's a very difficult transition. Oh, this is. And if you don't get it right away, that's totally fine because what does this tell you about yourself? This tells you that you have a little work to do. If you want to make English words feel more natural, don't get discouraged. If this doesn't sound great, right away, allow it to inspire. You, allow it to motivate you and guide you into the direction that you need to be learning. Maybe those S's and Z's felt really awkward to you using this different American sounding positioning. That's good. That's good that you're aware of that now, not only do you know that there are changes to make, but you know exactly what changes to make. Maybe the th positioning was very tough and it felt forced. And you feel your voice popping out cloth, cloth. Maybe that's how it sounds when you pronounce it. That's totally fine. As long as you recognize it and adjust, consider where you stand now at point a and where you wanna be at point B. And just one more quick reminder point B is understanding the positioning and the subtle differences between saying close, close, and clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes, clothes,

Speaker 3:

This

Speaker 1:

Clothes.

Speaker 3:

This is

Speaker 1:

Now, those are gonna take a little bit of work and consistency on your heart. Ative sounds are tricky. The positioning for ative sounds is tricky, and it takes a lot of time and patience to get the hang of them. But for now, just focus on these basics and know that there is a difference while it may be subtle between the words close, getting the S sound clothes, buzzing, vibrating with that Z sound and clothes, Getting the th very softly before a brief and fading Z sound clothes. And that's what I've got for you today. Folks, that is our lesson for today. Like I said, a very quick topic, a very easy topic. This was just something that came to my attention in the middle of a class. And I thought, I'll bet this student, isn't the only one who confuses these words. And I wrote it down as a note. And as soon as I finish that class, I said to myself, I'm gonna take some time and record this episode. So now that I have it recorded, I'll just take a little bit of time to edit this bad boy and release it for the masses to hear and enjoy. So let me close this one up by saying thank you for your time today. If you like, what you heard, make sure that you hit subscribe so that you're notified as soon as I have new episodes available for you in the future. And I look forward to teaching you countless more subtleties of the English language in the days to come thank you for your time and have a good one folks.