Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 198th episode. Before I get into today's topic, I want to tell you

about my recent guest appearance on the All-Ears English podcast.

We were featured in their episode number 128.

I'll add their iTunes podcast link in this episode's transcript page.

Or just go into iTunes and search All-Ears English.

Their podcasts cover a wide range of topics for English learners, and you should definitely check them out.

Thanks again to Lindsay and Gabby for giving me the opportunity to chat with your audience about English pronunciation.

Today I want to talk about the word close. No, I'm not talking about the word close.

No, I'm not talking about the verb close, C-L-O-S-E, but the noun close, C-L-O-T-H-E, as in she wants new clothes.

You heard that right, though.

I pronounced both of those words the same.

Close, C-L-O-T-H-E-S, is a rather frequent word in American English.

It's number 1,458 in the Frequency Dictionary, meaning that there are only 1,457 words that are used more often in American English.

Just like many of our highest frequency words, Native English speakers don't really think about

its pronunciation. So you can compare pronunciations, I'll say the word, C-L-O-T-H-E-S, without, and with the T-H-S

I'll use the more commonly used version, that is the version without the T-H sound first,

then the version with the T-H sound.

Clothes, clothes.

I'll say those again. Close, clothes. It's not just me who says that C-L-O-T-H-E-S and the verb C-L-O-S-E are homophones.

Longman-Prenunciation Dictionary agrees.

Actually, when I checked Longman pronunciation dictionary on this, I was surprised at one small detail.

...