Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress. There are some general issues that I need to discuss with you but there's one specific issue that's quite urgent. Of course, you know that in English, a C can sometimes be pronounced in the same way as an S. Many of my students, they look at this word and take a guess and say “sussessful” which is a nice try, I can see why you could pronounce it that way but actually, each C in this word is pronounced differently and that's made clear when you look at the phonemic script. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Pretend you're like a superhero fighting a monster! And the following vowel sound will be unstressed, the weak schwa sound /ə/. Definition and synonyms of difficult from the online English dictionary from Macmillan Education. Her age made it difficult to get another job. Thanks for watching today and I'll see you for another English lesson next week. Well that's it, ten tricky English adjectives that English learners often mispronounce. So looking at this word, it's the third syllable that is the strongest and just like ‘exponential' the first syllable also has a secondary stress so we can hear that one clearly as well which means that the other two reduce. The final syllable is also unstressed. So notice that the first syllable is the stressed one and the following syllables reduce down to the schwa sound. ol.topleveldefinition { div.defv2relatedwords a:link, div.defv2relatedwords a:visited, div.defv2relatedwords a:active { There's a few silent letters, some strange vowel sounds, difficult pronunciation of the same letter in the same word. Complex. But the real pronunciation challenge here is the cluster of consonants that are pronounced at the end. color:#714C27; } But the second syllable is quite tricky. Now the second syllable is the stressed syllable in this word and that's why you hear it pronounced more strongly while the first syllable is short and lower in pitch. div.defv2relatedwords ol li { background:#ffffff; Using a wider range of adjectives will you to be more expressive, to show emotions and feelings and to sound more interesting when you use English. Choosing the winner was a difficult task. verbs difficilitate, difficult and difficultate which may be used as adjectives within certain contexts. So really, creating this sound successfully is about switching between these two sounds smoothly. } Ella finds the children very difficult to cope with. it is difficult to do something: It’s difficult to say what time I will get home. The relationship between the general manager and the marketing team is quite complex. div.defv2relatedwords p, div.defv2relatedwords ol li { COMplex. They're really happy and they're satisfied with the result. And they're pushed up against the inside of my top teeth so we move through /tʃɪ/ through the unstressed vowel sound to /v/ making sure that your top teeth are touching your lower lip. font-size:25px; Like I said, ‘comfortable‘ is the more common pronunciation so I recommend that you practise using that one. People are moving to rural areas to live healthier lifestyles. margin-top:5px; But also my tongue is tense all the way along the sides here. Now, this is a wonderful, descriptive adjective that means harmful or damaging in some way. to show the degrees of the quality. You might hear people say ‘mischievous' with four syllables but that's incorrect. Adjectives with two syllables, ending in -y The government will help rural communities affected by the floods. Your email address will not be published. It's a bit of a tongue twister, isn't it? There are three consonant sounds here together which makes it quite challenging. It's harmful or it's damaging in some way. CLICK HERE to read the full lesson transcript. Practising pronunciation is just like training at the gym. padding-bottom:8px; So this adjective is used to describe something that consists of many different and connected parts that makes it quite difficult to understand or manage. Now you often hear this adjective used for things like jewellery or houses or cars to tell that something is expensive or worth a lot of money. So if you need to refresh your memory about how to use adjectives in English sentences, then check out that lesson up there. Wie steigert man englische Adjektive? There's two C's and two S's. Remember that if you haven't subscribed yet to the mmmEnglish channel, please do it. It's harmful or it's damaging in some way. div.defv2relatedwords a { margin-top:18px; It's not ‘specifi‘, it's ‘specific‘. The stress is on the middle syllable here and there are two things to pay attention to with this word. Es gibt im Englischen, wie auch im Deutschen, drei Formen bei der Steigerung der Adjektive: Grundform; Vergleichsform – Komparativ (comparative) Superlativ (superlative) I'm feeling really anxious about my interview tomorrow. But I want to share a little tip with you because in Australia, our pronunciation of this word is much more relaxed. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel to be the first to get my new videos, and come and say hi on my Facebook page!! There's also two difficult consonant sounds here ‘ch’ and /v/. text-decoration:underline; And as frustrating as it is, that the same letter is pronounced differently in the same word, just accept it, practise it, remember it. So I hope that this was a useful lesson for you. I've talked about this adjective before in another pronunciation lesson but it's so common and it's so often mispronounced that it had to be included in this lesson as well. Because yes, you can add meaning to your sentences by using simple adjectives like ‘happy' or ‘sad' or ‘nice' or ‘bored' but life can be so much more spectacular than that, can't it? Now are you ready for your workout? painful, laborious, hard, tedious, tough, arduous, strenuous, trying, challenging, difficult, formidable, gruelling, heavy, onerous, ponderous, backbreaking, bruising, burdensome, dour, draining, exacting, excruciating, rough, severe, tiresome, wearisome, brutal, debilitating, demanding, dogged, extreme, grinding, grueling, harsh, irksome, labored, punishing, rigorous, rugged, serious, tall, taxing, testing, … And that consonant sound is usually made by the letters -NG like in ‘song‘. I speak with an Australian English accent . difficult/ hard/ challenging/ demanding/ taxing for somebody difficult/ hard to do something physically difficult/ hard/ challenging/ demanding/ taxing There's an extra consonant sound added, one that you can't see in the written word. It's a complex issue but we need to find a solution. If you have any specific questions about the accommodation, then please ask Sarah. But the second syllable is the most difficult here because of the consonant cluster /trɪ/ with an unstressed vowel sound. color:#4A789F; Thanks. Adjectives can be gradable and non-gradable, which is called extreme adjectives. Required fields are marked *. Detrimental. 22 ‘LOOK’ Expressions & Phrasal Verbs in Context: look up to, look back on, look as though + MORE! My grandmother gave me her sapphire brooch. But this is also an excellent adjective to describe a person's qualities and often used in a professional context. someone who is difficult never seems to be, Difficult to do and involving a lot of effort, Words used to describe someone who is easily annoyed or difficult to please. The sound is produced right at the back of the throat while the sound is made with the tongue and the teeth at the front of the mouth. Exponential. Now most of the pronunciation problems with this adjective relate to syllable stress. Are you comfortable with the decision? Adroit: clever, resourceful. Your email address will not be published. 1.2. It describes someone who has fun by being silly and creating a disruption but not in a negative way, not in a way that's really or annoying or that really harms anyone. Included below are past participle and present participle forms for the Now if you haven't heard this word pronounced before, it looks a little tricky. Her behaviour became increasingly difficult to understand. They're all a little tricky. Now I have to admit that I'm a huge fan of adjectives. mmmEnglish Video Lessons are a series of video lessons created to build confidence in English learners and focus on English in daily life. padding-right:30px; Animistic: quality of recurrence or reversion to earlier form. Lot's of examples and practice with these ten adjectives: successful anxious valuable exponential complex rural specific mischievous detrimental comfortable, My video lessons are created to help English learners to improve their pronunciation and speaking skills. Evenings are difficult – how about the morning? } There are a lot of vowel letters in this word which makes it a little confusing to work out how to pronounce each syllable and which one is stressed. Please note that the pronunciation of some of these words differs between English accents. color:#4A789F; Now if you have cheeky children in your life, this could be the perfect adjective to describe them.