Minimal pairs practice

Listening comes before speaking. If you cannot reliably hear the difference between two words, you cannot reliably produce it either, and practising your own pronunciation will not help until the contrast is audible to you.

Work in this order: play both words of a pair and listen for the difference. Then have someone play one at random and see whether you can name it — the listening quiz does exactly this. Only once you score consistently should you start producing the pair yourself.

The contrasts that are hard depend on your first language, because you only struggle with distinctions your own language does not make.

Speakers of Japanese and Korean typically work hardest on /r/ and /l/. Spanish and Italian speakers often work on /ɪ/ and /iː/, since their vowel system has one sound where English has two. Speakers of French, German, Russian and many others work on /θ/ and /ð/, which few languages have. Speakers of Hindi and other South Asian languages often focus on /v/ and /w/.

Test yourself on a few pairs from each group above; whichever you get wrong is where your practice time belongs.

Read slowly first. Pronounce each syllable deliberately before trying to blend them at full speed. Rushing hides the vowel and consonant shapes your ear needs to learn.

Record yourself. Most phones have a voice memo app — record a word, then compare it to the playback here. Hearing the gap between your version and the model accent makes targeted practice far easier.

Focus on one accent. Jumping between American, British and Australian in the same session creates confusion. Pick the accent you encounter most and stick with it until the patterns feel natural.

Every word above is a button. Set the accent and voice you want on the main screen, then come back — the guides use whatever you chose. To hear two accents against each other, use Compare; to test whether you can actually hear a contrast, use the listening quiz.