A mouthful of English

Can you distinguish the words desert and dessert clearly when you say them? Which one is food? Which one refers to an area of land? Part of the secret is stressing the correct syllable. A de sert – stressed on the first syllable – is a desolate area of land with little or no vegetation. A de ssert – stressed on the second syllable – is a sweet course eaten at the end of a meal. To practise, use both words in the same sentence: Ice cream is the perfect dessert for the desert!

It may be difficult at first to hear the different vowel sounds in chip and cheap . As a result, some English learners may pronounce both words exactly in the same way. This and these – or it and eat – are often confused for the same reason. Although context usually helps the listener understand what we mean, getting these sounds right will make things a lot easier. When dealing with pronunciation, it's useful to use a specific symbol to identify each sound. The vowel in cheap , these and eat – represented by /i:/ – is a bit longer, and the lips are spread when pronouncing it – just like when you smile or when you say cheese . The sound in chip , this and it , represented by /ɪ/, is shorter and a bit closer to /e/. The longer vowel /i:/ is often spelt with a combination of two letters – as in please , meet , or key . But not always – you can find this sound in me and she , for example. Besides, /ɪ/ may also be spelt in various ways – busy , minute . So when learnin

Lots of adjectives have an –ed ending in English. This is because they come from regular verbs like surprise , embarrass , confuse , annoy , or worry . These verbs have past participle forms ending in –ed that can be used as adjectives. Many of these adjectives can be used to say how we feel – inspired , excited , relaxed , or puzzled , for example. Can you form the –ed adjectives from the following verbs? You’ll find the answers below. Key: embarrassed; confused; interested; disappointed; frightened; worried; tired; annoyed; amused; shocked; surprised; bored; depressed. Now, which ones would you use to describe the faces at the top?

Can you say flower and flour correctly? Believe it or not, they both sound the same in English. But since they have different spellings, it may be difficult to believe their pronunciations are identical. That's why learners often mispronounce one of them. Flour and flower are homophones - words that look different but are pronounced in the same way. There are a lot of homophones in English, and many of them are very common words. Here are some examples. Do you think you can find a word that sounds exactly the same as each of the following? You'll find the answers below - you just have to match them in the correct order.

Some English verbs have irregular forms that many of us learn using irregular verbs lists. While this may be helpful sometimes, it often means we focus too much on the spelling instead of learning the right pronunciation. Speakers of some languages find it difficult to distinguish the different forms of verbs like drink, sing, and swim , for example. The simple past forms drank , sang , and swam are pronounced with the vowel sound /æ/. On the other hand, the past participles drunk , sung , and swum are pronounced with the sound / ᴧ /. Notice that the letters 'a' and 'u' often represent the sounds /æ/ and / ᴧ / respectively. The difference between words like cat and cut , or hat and hut , is the same we find in some irregular verbs where the past form is spelled with 'a' and the past participle is spelled with 'u'. Knowing this may also help us with other irregular verbs. The three forms of cut ( cut - cut - cut ) are all said /k ᴧ t/, and