Learn how to pronounce the words SAINT, SENT, and CENT with this American English Pronunciation Lesson. Sent and cent are homophones and are pronounced exactly the same way.
Definitions:
SAINT a holy or virtuous person
SENT to mail a letter or to propel
CENT a small monetary unit
Pronunciation:
SAINT: s-long a-n-t or /seɪnt/
SENT: s-short e-n-t or /sɛnt/
CENT: s-short e-n-t or /sɛnt/
You may also like:
How to Pronounce SENT SCENT CENT – English Pronunciation Lesson
Transcript:
Hi everyone! Jennifer from Tarle Speech with your pronunciation question of the week!
The words today are:
cent which is a small monetary unit
sent to mail a letter or to propel and
saint a holy or virtuous person
So let’s take a look at our words. The words are relatively the same. The only difference today is going to be the vowel sound. So let’s start with those consonant sounds.
To say the s sound correctly let’s start with that s. And to do this, the tip of your tongue is either down towards the bottom of the mouth – pointed down. Or it is behind the top front teeth. It is not touching any place in the mouth. Air is just going to keep moving out of the mouth.
Then let’s finish the ending of the words too because those are both the same. For the n sound touch the tip of your tongue to the back of your top front teeth for that n air moves out of your nose. Then pull the tongue down for the t. Air is just going to puff out.
Now let’s look at that eh versus the a sound. Okay for the short e sound the eh sound, what you’re going to do is your mouth is going to be relaxed, and it’s going to be slightly open. You should see the tip of your tongue between the top and the bottom teeth. The back of my tongue is flat and the back of my tongue is almost touching the inside of my back teeth.
Now for the A sound. We’re going to practice this by really moving the mouth A. And to do this you can see I start with a very wide open mouth and then I move to a smile. When I do that, the tip of my tongue starts way low in my mouth, back of the tongue is pulled high up, and then my tongue moves to high and flat, behind the top front teeth, and it is not touching my teeth at all. A A
Let’s try these in words so we have eh in sent sent sent
And A in saint saint saint
sent saint
sent saint
sent sent sent
saint saint saint
And now for a sentence:
The child sent Santa a story about Saint Nicholas.
Give it a try. I know people are going to notice the difference!
If you found this helpful we always love a like and a share and if you need more help check us out at Tarle speech. Thanks so much everyone have a great week!