Learn how to pronounce the words FIR & FUR with this American English Homophone Pronunciation Lesson. These words are homophones and are pronounced exactly the same way.
Definitions:
FIR: an evergreen tree
FUR: short fine hair on an animal
Pronunciation:
These words are pronounced exactly the same way!
/fɜr/ or fer
This may be helpful:
Two for Tuesday✌️Learn English HOMOPHONE Pronunciation
Transcript:
Hi there it’s Jennifer from Tarle speech with your two for Tuesday homophone lesson.
Homophones are words that are pronounced exactly the same way. They just have different spellings and different meanings. We have two words today that are commonly mispronounced. And I think the reason they’re mostly mispronounced is that people try to read these words as they are spelled. And people try to say that I or the U and that’s going to cause problems. We have a bossy r here and that means that we are just going to say ER ER.
Okay, oh you guys, I think I forgot to give you the definitions. All right we have:
fir which is an evergreen tree and
fur short fine hair of an animal
Okay so again back to the lesson. As I was just saying, we have a bossy r situation here, and what that means is is that the r is going to take precedence and we are not going to say the vowel that is before it. We’re just going to think about saying ER. So when you see IR or UR most of the time, I hate to say all of the time because you know in English there’s always an exception to the rule, we’re just going to say that ER sound.
Okay, so we’re going to say ER. So let’s start. How do we start this word? We’re going to start with that F sound and to do this you’re going to think about kind of gently biting the inside or the outside of that bottom lip. Air is going to continuously move out of the mouth. F F F
So you want to make sure you keep those lips open a little tiny bit so the air can come out. Then we’re going to add that ER and to do that I like to think of square tense lips. Tip of the tongue is either pointed down or flipped back it’s just not touching the teeth. ER Okay remember bossy R here. It means we’re just saying that R. We’re not saying those vowels when we see i r or u r
Let’s put it all together:
F-ER F-ER
fur fir fur
fur fir fur
And now for a sentence:
The animal brushed its fur against the fir tree.
Give it a try people are going to notice the difference. If you found this helpful please share us with your friends, give us a like if you’re so inclined, and if you’re looking for help with products, or with classes you can check us out at Tarle speech.
Thanks everyone have a great week!