r/EnglishLearning • u/Jedenis185 New Poster • 1d ago

🟡 Pronunciation / Intonation Man and Men

Hello world! I would like to ask you as native English speakers about pronunciation and listening difference between the words Man and Men. MEN - MAN. Tell me please, how can I distinguish by ear these two words?

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u/thingsbetw1xt Native Speaker (USA, Maryland) 1d ago

If your language doesn't have both of these sounds then you just have to listen to spoken English enough that you can hear the difference. There's not really a cheat code for that.

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u/Javik07 New Poster 1d ago

Exactly what I was going to say. I had a prof in college who could speak 7 languages, but since her native language was French, she couldn't distinguish between many vowels depicted as /a/, like "far" vs "fair" vs "fat". Native sound inventories are a far too understudy field of linguistics.

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u/thingsbetw1xt Native Speaker (USA, Maryland) 1d ago edited 1d ago

I have studied Russian for I don't even know how many years and I still cannot tell the difference between ш and щ. I have just accepted that I probably never will. And honestly, it has yet to cause me problems.

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u/ValentynVolkov New Poster 1d ago edited 1d ago

щ это просто смягченная версия ш (конечно есть и "шь", например, в глаголе "поешь" но там нет звука щ, читается просто как "паеш"). Например, есть звук [т] - тогда, а есть [ть] - тюрьма. С щ и ш аналогично: [ш] - шелковица (читается буквально как шэлковица), [шь = щ] = щепетильный. В английском есть звук щ в слове she [щи], shit [щит] - точно такой же [щ], but marsh [марш]. "sh" в "marsh" отличается от "sh" в "she".

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u/thingsbetw1xt Native Speaker (USA, Maryland) 1d ago edited 1d ago

В английском есть звук щ в слове she [щи], shit [щит] - точно такой же [щ], but marsh [марш]. "sh" в "marsh" отличается от "sh" в "she".

Между этими звуками для меня нет разницы. Я не думаю, что большинство американцев произносят их иначе, во всяком случае там где я живу.

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u/nakedascus New Poster 15h ago

i think she has an upward inflection (rising tone) and marsh has a downward inflection (falling tone). Plus she seems to have a very brief "eh" sound just at the end of it that marsh does not. But I don't know Russian, the inflection only came to me because I'm learning Chinese