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

My name is Amanda, and this is a re-release of our 47th episode.

Today I'm going to talk about three words I frequently hear mispronounced.

Could, C-O-U-L-D? Should-S-H-O-U-L-D? And would W-O-U-L-D. I'm pretty sure that it's the O-U-L-S-L spelling that causes these words pronunciation problems. The first thing to note is that there is no L sound in any of those words.

Yes, the L is silent. Yes, in all three words.

The online etymology dictionary, which I'll link to in these transcripts, says that the

L was added to the spelling of these words in the 16th century, though it doesn't say why it

was added.

All that's truly important for you to know is that you shouldn't say the L in those words ever.

Got it? The L is silent.

Next, the vowel sound in these words can be tricky too.

That vowel sound is the other U, U, which is also the vowel sound of the letter U in the word put,

and the O-O of the word look. Listen to the vowel sounds in those words. Could, should, would, put,

look.

Episode 10 was all about the other you sound and the sound that many non-native speakers accidentally replace it with, the O-O sound, as in the word soon.

Listen to the difference between the other U and the O-O sound.

I'm going to compare the sounds using two words that are both spelled O-O, L-O-K and S-O-O-N. Look soon.

Those are two different vowel sounds.

Can you hear the difference?

Look soon.

Repeat those two words.

Look soon. Now listen to the vowel sounds in look and could. Look, could. Can you hear that those words have the same vowel sound? It's also the same sound in the word put. Look, could, put.

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