Learn how to pronounce the words NAVEL & NAVAL with this American English Homophone Pronunciation Lesson. These words are homophones and are pronounced exactly the same way.

Definitions:

NAVEL – depression in the center of a person’s belly or a central point

NAVAL – relating to the Navy

Pronunciation:

These words are pronounced exactly the same way!

/ˈneɪvəl/ or NAY-vul

This may be helpful:

Two for Tuesday✌️Learn English HOMOPHONE Pronunciation

Transcript:

Hi everyone Jennifer from Tarle speech. It’s two for Tuesday. I have a homophone lesson. Those are two words that are pronounced exactly the same way, different spellings, and different meanings.

You actually get a bonus today because I’m going to give you a little pronunciation tip as well. So our words today are:

naval meaning relating to the Navy and
navel a depression in a person’s belly or the central point

So we are going to talk about this word with its syllables or its beats. We have two syllables here. We’re going to start with nay – and you can see I’m starting by touching my teeth with my tongue. Air is moving out of my nose and then I’m opening my mouth and then closing it for that a. So open wide and then moving to a smile. Tongue moves from low to high nay nay nay

Okay for syllable number two here’s where my tip comes in. Most of the time, and again I hate to say it’s a 100 rule, because you know in English we always have exceptions. When you see AL or EL we’re always just going to say ul or we’re not going to pronounce the letter as it is written. So to say syllable number two here we’re going to think of it as vul.

And to do that we’re going to start with that V sound. Keep your lips a little bit open and think about kind of biting the inside or the outside of your bottom lip. Air just moves out and your voice box is on. Then we’re going to open the mouth slightly as we move the tongue to behind those top front teeth. vul

You can see I’m not moving my mouth a whole lot, but I am opening it slightly as I move from that V to that l sound. So let’s look at that one more time vul vul vul vul

Let’s put it all together

Naval Navel Naval Navel Naval

And now for a sentence:
The naval Captain was upset and he commented there’s too much navel gazing going on.

Give it a try people will notice the difference. If you found this helpful we’d love it if you shared us with your friends and gave us a like. If you need help we have products and classes at Tarle speech.

Thanks so much everyone have an amazing week!