Minimal pairs

Another week has gone by again and here I am making my contribution with yet another entry on the quirks of English. Today's entry will be devoted to an English quirk related to pronunciation, no other than minimal pairs. As I mentioned in my post last week, one letter changes everything in English. 

So, what are minimal pairs, then? Minimal pairs are two different words that are distinguished by one single phoneme, for example, 'pet' and 'bet' are minimal pairs since they are distinguished by the initial sound. In other words, they are words that are pronounced similarly but not equally. It is this quirk that makes English pronunciation a bit hard for Spaniards.

In today's entry I will deal with with some minimal pairs involving vocalic sounds. Let's start:

1. [æ] vs. [˄]

The first sound is halfway between a and e, whereas the second sound is pronounced with the central part of the tongue, with the tongue up and it is a bit darker. The first sound usually represented by the grapheme <a>, while the second sound is never represented with the grapheme <a>, being usually represented by graphemes <o>, <u> or <ou>. There are countless minimal pairs involving these sounds:

[æ]        [˄]

Cat       Cut

Hat       Hut

Cap      Cup

Bat       But

App       Up

Crash   Crush

Mast     Must

                                        Ran      Run

                                       Lack      Luck

                                         Fan      Fun

2. [æ]  vs. [a:]

The second sound is longer than the first one. Let' see examples of these minimal pairs:

[æ]            [a:]

Cat            Kart

Pat            Part

Ant            Aunt

Bat            Bart

Pack         Park

Lack          Lark

Cap           Carp

Fat             Fart

3. [e] vs. [3:]

Once again, length is the distinctive feature here, the second sound being longer than the first one:

[e]            [3:]

Fest          First

Head        Heard

Wed          Word

Ten           Turn

Lent          Learnt

Debt          Dirt

Slept         Slurped 

Best          Burst

4. [ɪ] vs. [i:]

This is one of the hardest distinction for Spanish speakers of English. Let's delve into this:

[ɪ]            [i:]

It              Eat

            Fit            Feet / Feat

Sit            Seat

Pitch        Peach

Bitch        Beach

Shit          Sheet

Phil          Feel

           Still          Steel / steal

           Mitt           Meat / meet

This          These

Grin          Green

Mill            Meal

Ship          Sheep

      Pick           Peak   

As you can see the short sound is normally represented by letter <i>, whereas the long sound is frequently represented by letters <ee> or <ea>. In addition, before sound [k], the short sound is followed by the letters <ck>, but the long sound is followed by letter <k>.

5. [ɒ] vs. [ɔ]

The fisrt sound is shorter than the second and is frequently represented by letter <o>. The second sound, by contrast, is longer and frequently represented by letters <or>, <all>, or <au>:

[ɒ]           [ɔ:]

Pot          Port

Shot        Short

Moll         Mall

Toll          Tall

Cot         Caught

Bot          Bought

Cod         Cord

Cost        Coursed

Poll          Paul

6. [Ʊ] vs. [u:]

These sounds are hard to distinguish. Length is once again an important factor; The first sound appear before a double consonant.

[Ʊ]                 [u:]

Pull                Pool

Full                Fool

Would           Wood

                                                   Look               Luke

Well, English pronunciation may seem hard, but don't despair! Try to remember some of these minimal pairs and visit my entry on English pronunciation. If you want to practise, this exercise will make you sweat. You can contribute to the blog and leave comments with more minimal pairs! See you around!