Avoid embarrassing mistakes – How to pronounce shit vs sheet & bitch vs beach

 

Have you ever said some things that were not so nice, just because your pronunciation was a little incorrect? Words with long ee and short ih sounds are terrible for this!

For example, have you ever told your friends “Let’s go to the bitch this afternoon” when you clearly wanted to say “the beach”?

These mistakes are common, because English pronunciation is tricky, difficult. But today, you’ll learn how to NEVER make these mistakes again.

 

Words with long ee sounds  & short ih sounds

There are two distinct vowel sounds that make the difference between words like:

• shit & sheet
• bitch & beach
• piss & piece

 

It seems like a lot of pronunciation mistakes are often with bad words. Pronounce it correctly, it’s a nice word. Pronounce it incorrectly, it’s vulgar.

It’s as if the English language wants you to make these embarrassing mistakes.

Let’s look at two important sounds:

long “e”, like “eeeeee”

the short “i” sound, like “ih”

To make the long “e” sound, imagine you’re projecting the sound a long way, like “eeeeeeee”. It’s probably best if you watch the video lesson to see me demonstrate this for you.

For the short “i” sound, you don’t project the sound. It falls. Imagine the sound just falling out of your mouth. Again, it’s easier to understand if you watch the video lesson above.

 

How to position your mouth

To make the long “ee” sound and short “ih” sound, pay special attention to the position of your mouth.

For the long “ee”, like sheet, beach, and piece, they’re happy words, so your mouth position is like a smile. The corners of your mouth move up. (Watch the video lesson, you’ll see exactly how to do this).

For the short “ih” sound your jaw drops, like the sound. Your jaw moves down a little, and you open your mouth more. (Watch the video, you’ll see. I bet you really want to watch the lesson now, don’t you?

 

Practice for yourself

Here’s some practice sentences. Read them slowly, so you can concentrate on the position of your mouth and how you project the sound:

• I love the beach
• I love the bitch (don’t ever say this in public…)
• I wanna piece of cake!
• I wanna piss. (to piss = vulgar slang for “to go to the restroom, to pee)
• The information is in a spreadsheet.
• The information is in a “spreadshit.” (That’s not a real word, but it’s a real mistake that a friend of mine made! We laugh at it now) 🙂