How important is pronunciation?

I can't wait till next week, I'm going to the b*tch!

I need to write a note, can you give me a sh*t of paper please?

I haven't eaten all day, I'm so angry!

Personally, I don't think that my students should hide their accent when they speak English, in my opinion accents are really interesting and shouldn't be something to be embarrassed of, so I generally don't insist too much on having "perfect pronunciation". But there are some cases when it is very important to pronounce words correctly, so keep reading to make sure you're not making any of these pronunciation mistakes!

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Be careful!

These words can be tricky, and if you pronounce them wrong you could offend someone or just create an unnecessary misunderstanding, so it's better to make sure you know how to say them right!

beach pronounced -"b-ee-ch" sounds like - teach, preach, peach	bitch pronounced with the "short i" sound sounds like - twitch, glitch, hitch, witch
sheet pronounced with the "long e" sound sounds like - heat, neat, treat, sweet	shit pronounced with the "short i" sound sounds like - it, quit, bit
hungry pronounced with the "h" sound sounds like - honey, happy, healthy	angry pronounced with the "long a" sound sounds like - ant, and, answer
focus pronounced with the "long o" sound sounds like - phone, drone, no	the "f" word pronounced with the "short u" sound sounds like - yuck, buck, truck
life (noun) pronounced with the "long i" sound sounds like - wife, knife, ice	​live (verb) pronounced with the "short i" sound sounds like - little, it, in

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There are plenty of words that are difficult to pronounce, but the above words are the ones you need to be careful with, for all those other words, practice makes better, so just keep trying! I'm going to leave you with a funny video, just to show you that even us native speakers don't always pronounce things right! Enjoy!

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There's no glossary today because I don't think you will have any difficulties understanding everything, but if there's something or in the post or in the video that you don't understand, just leave your question in the comments!