#90 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• ask
• bath
• castle
• class
• fast
• glass
• maths
• pass
• passport
• passed
• past
• task

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They have the long vowel [a:] in British English or [æ:] in American English. Some students want to sound more American but unfortunately pronounce a short [e] here. Whether you prefer British or American accent, the vowel MUST be long!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#94 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• aubergine
• August
• aunt
• Australia
• Austria
• automatic

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ Easy, they all start with “au”! But does that mean they are pronounced [aʊ]? Unfortunately not:
• Long o [ɔ:] – August, automatic
• Short o [ɒ] – Australia, Austria
• Long a [a:] – aunt
• Diphthong [əʊ] – aubergine

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#98 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• coincide, coincidence, coincidental
• communicate, communicative, communication
• economy, economist, economic, economics
• educate, educator, educated, education
• exam, examine, examiner, examination
• photo, photographer, photography, photographic
• politics, policy, political, politician
• social, society, sociology, sociological
• technical, technique, technology, technological

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They have variable stress, i.e. different word stress:
• COincide, coINcidence, coinciDENtal
• comMUnicate, comMUnicative, communiCAtion
• eCOnomy, eCOnomist, ecoNOmic, ecoNOmics
• Educate, Educator, eduCAted, eduCAtion
• Exam, eXAmine, eXAminer, examiNAtion
• PHOto, phoTOgrapher, phoTOgraphy, photoGRAphic
• POlitics, POlicy, poLItical, poliTIcian
• SOcial, soCIety, soCIOlogy, socioLOgical
• TEchnical, techNIque, techNOlogy, technoLOgical

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#100 Our favourite mistakes: Review

▶️ Time to look back at a big bunch of favourite mistakes before we go on!

To help you navigate between the different posts, Afandi English uses *hashtags*.

❓You’re interested in any kind of typical mistakes of Uzbek English learners?
❗️Browse #mistakes (99 posts).

❓Vocabulary is what worries you?
❗️Follow #vocabulary (35 posts).

❓You want to work on your grammar?
❗️Check out #grammar (33 posts).

❓Your pronunciation needs polishing?
❗️Go for #pronunciation (30 posts).

❗️Besides, there’s also #writing (11 posts) for issues in spelling, punctuation and spacing.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes

#102 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• bowl
• dough
• focus
• ghost
• goal
• hotel
• joke
• lonely
• most
• notice
• own
• Seoul
• sew
• soap
• won’t

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They contain the double vowel [əʊ], or in American English [ou]. For clarity in Cyrillic (not Russian pronunciation):
• bowl – ❌ баул, ✅ боул
• dough – ❌ дау, ✅ доу
• focus – ❌ фокус, ✅ фоукус
• ghost – ❌ гост, ✅ гоуст
• goal – ❌ гол, ✅ гоул
• hotel – ❌ хотел, ✅ хоутел
• joke – ❌ джок, ✅ джоук
• lonely – ❌ лонли, ✅ лоунли
• most – ❌ мост, ✅ моуст
• notice – ❌ нотис, ✅ ноутис
• own – ❌ аун, ✅ оун
• Seoul – ❌ Сеул, ✅ Соул
• sew – ❌ сю, ✅ соу
• soap – ❌ суп, ✅ соуп
• won’t – ❌ вонт, ✅ воунт

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#106 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• childhood
• happy
• have
• hobby
• homework
• house

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They contain the soft [h]. Do not pronounce the hard [x] as it is not found in any variety of English. On the other hand, Russian only has the hard [x] but not the soft [h] sound. In Uzbek there are actually both sounds but due to Russian influence the two have become largely indistinguishable. Make sure that every ‘h’ is soft when you speak English!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#110 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• alcohol
• Alzheimer’s
• hamburger
• Hamlet
• Harry Potter
• Harvard
• Hawaii
• Hong Kong
• Hitler
• hyena
• hygiene
• Ohio

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ The [h] in these international words and names was changed to [g] in Russian - here's why. Make sure you do not pronounce [g] in English!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#114 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• bull
• bullet
• bully
• bush
• butcher
• cushion
• pudding

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ The ‘u’ in these words is pronounced [ʊ], as in “book”, not [ʌ] as in “bus”. For clarity in Cyrillic (not Russian pronunciation):
• bull – ❌ балл, ✅ булл
• bullet – ❌ баллет, ✅ буллит
• bully – ❌ балли, ✅ булли
• bush – ❌ баш, ✅ буш
• butcher – ❌ бачер, ✅ бучер
• cushion – ❌ кашин, ✅ кушин
• pudding – ❌ паддинг, ✅ пуддинг

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#118 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• above
• every
• move
• oven
• over
• video
• visa
• vowel

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They all have a strong [v] sound, like the ‘в’ in Russian and unlike ‘v’ in Uzbek. For clarity in Cyrillic (not Russian pronunciation):
• above – ❌ эбоу, ✅ эбав
• every – ❌ эури, ✅ эври
• move – ❌ муу, ✅ мув
• oven – ❌ оуэн, ✅ авен
• over – ❌ оууер, ✅ оувер
• video – ❌ уидео, ✅ видиоу
• visa – ❌ уиза, ✅ виза
• vowel – ❌ уауэл, ✅ вауэл

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#123 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• determine
• examine
• examiner
• interpreter
• New Zealand
• photographer

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They are all stressed in the middle:
❌DE-ter-mine
✅de-TER-mine

❌E-xa-mine
✅e-XA-mine

❌e-xa-MI-ner
✅e-XA-mi-ner

❌in-ter-PRE-ter
✅in-TER-pre-ter

❌NEW-zea-LAND
✅new-ZEA-land

❌pho-to-GRA-pher
✅pho-TO-gra-pher

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#127 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• church
• Turkey
• word
• work
• world
• worm

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They all contain the [ɜ:] vowel, as in “girl”. Be especially careful with “work”, it should sound different from “walk”.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#131 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• ache
• character
• chemistry
• choir
• mechanic
• stomach

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ The ‘ch’ in them is pronounced as [k]. Check out the full list.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#141 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• hello
• like
• look
• online
• only

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They all contain /L/ sounds that Russian-educated Uzbeks often pronounce with a Russian very dark /L/. This is probably for their similarity to Russian words:
• hello sounds like алло
• like sounds like лайк
• look sounds like лук
• online sounds like онлайн
• only sounds close enough to online

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#1 Odd Man Out

🆕 Here’s your chance to check whether you’ve learned your lessons from our favourite #mistakes – find the odd man out, that is the one item that doesn’t fit in.

▶️ Pay attention to your pronunciation when reading the following sentence:

She looked into the mirror, changed her dress again, called her fiancé and waited for him impatiently.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Our favourite mistakes #147: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• confidence
• distance
• development
• government
• helpless
• speechless

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ Words ending in -ence/-ance, -ment and -less are pronounced with schwa (ə), just like the last letter in борми.
• kɒnfɪdəns
• dɪstəns
• dɪveləpmənt
• gʌvənmənt
• helpləs
• spi:ʧləs

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

▶️ Afandi English is over 4 years old now and there’s a ton of stuff you’ve missed. Here are some hashtags for posts about language learning:

#correct
Check if you can spot some common mistakes.

#grammar
Brush up your grammar.

#ielts
Get the DOs and DON’Ts of preparing for IELTS.

#learn2learn
Take advice on how to learn a foreign language.

#mistakes
The biggest collection of Uzbek learners’ typical mistakes in English – at your fingertips.

#oddmanout
See if you can find the mistake.

#pronunciation
Fix your pronunciation problems, one at a time.

#self_study
Sit down and help yourself. Interesting videos plus script plus activities.

#tongue_twisters
Work on your pronunciation and fluency in one go.

#uni_vocab
Understand university-related vocabulary.

#vocabulary
Learn about lexical problems and pick the right words next time.

#world_englishes
Realise that English is a world language and prepare for the worst. Or the best?

#writing
Say goodbye to your most common and unnecessary writing mistakes.

Odd Man Out #2

▶️ Check your pronunciation and look for the vowel they all have in common, except one!

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Odd Man Out #4

▶️ Pay attention to your pronunciation today, more specifically to the number of syllables you pronounce.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Odd Man Out #5

▶️ Pay attention to the vowels.

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation

Odd Man Out #6

▶️ Pay attention to the vowel sound [aɪ].

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #oddmanout #pronunciation