hi everybody today we want to have a look at minimal pairs now first of all what is a minimal pair it's quite easy a minimal pair in english is a pair of words that differs only in one sound we could also say in one phoneme that would be the correct expression because usually we talk about phonemes not just sounds in phonology so this is really important it's not about the spelling it's all about the sounds but the other thing that is important is that these two words that sound so similar um the two words in a minimal pair they have a very different meaning and that is also the reason why they are so complicated for english learners because you think well they sound almost the same but then the meaning is completely different and you will see this today because we have a look at quite a lot of different examples so let's make a start straight away so first of all this is probably the most popular and well-known example for minimal pairs sheep and ship and i've also added some cartoons to illustrate this so obviously those two are not the same at all one is an animal another one is something you can use to sail the ocean with and you can see that the spelling looks very different but in fact the pronunciation is very similar and i've added the phonemic transcript underneath for you so we've got three sounds in each word we've got a sh then for sheep we have a long e sound and a p but then for ship the middle sound the vowel sound is different it's a short e and if you don't know these phonemic transcript symbols then please watch my other videos because i teach them there so long e and short e that's the difference really for those two words and we have a lot of other ones in english so for example this one here cheap versus chip so something that's cheap doesn't cost a lot of money and a chip you could have this in a computer um but of course some americans might also say a single chip like from chips i would call them fries you could also use that word to describe an individual chip okay so we've got the same here the difference is only in the vowel sound we have e long e and then a short e right so cheap and chip is another example of a minimal pair for a long e and a short a but it's not just for e and e we could also have examples of other minimal pairs with vowel sounds so for example here we've got left and left now the phonemic transcript is almost identical to the spelling but you can see it's phonemic because i've put it in these funny brackets so the only difference really here is again the vowel sound we've got an e for left opposite of right and then we've got an e sound for lift and lift can have two different meanings in english it could be the lift that takes you up a tall building to another floor and it could also be to lift a heavy box of the floor so two different meanings one is a noun the other one is a verb but the pronunciation is the same they both have a short e all right let's have a look at some more examples here another example with a minimal pair with vowel sound difference we've got the verb the word cool adjective okay and here we have a long oh sound and you can see it's long because we've got these two dots after the vowels and that always means the the sound is long so cool long o sound i hope you like my little illustrations here for cool because of course that could mean cold but it can also mean oh you look very cool with your sunglasses and then we've got the word call now that is an r sound a long r sound you can make a phone call you can call somebody um on on a landline on a mobile phone so oh and are are the difference and that is also a minimal pair right but we also have minimal pairs with consonant differences so it's not only vowel sounds um you could also have a pair of words where the only difference in sound is one consonant so here we've got lot as in a lot for example a lot of people that you can see in this image and then we've got the word not and look at the phonemic transcript everything is the same in sound the only difference is the very first sound we've got a and an in for not so that also is a minimal pair here's another example pin and bin again to consonants at the beginning of the word now this will be difficult for arabic speakers probably to hear and to say because does not exist in arabic so it's very important to learn the difference here because in english we do differentiate those sounds and if you change the sound it's a different meaning altogether they are not the same and here's another example of lie like to tell a lie for example that's saying not saying the truth here you can see a man looking a bit like pinocchio and then die the end like the opposite of liv and so and at the front are the only difference in this word in these words and so that's a minimal pair as well and here's one more ball like for example a basketball and tall so everything is the same same vowel sound same final consonant but the first two sounds of the beginning the the first the first sound of of each word is different we have a b and a and so those also form a minimal pair right okay but we can also have minimal pairs where the difference um in sound is in the middle we had those before with sheep and chip actually but i just wanted to show you one more example where the consonant is in the middle so for example tidy and tiny also form a minimal pair so we've got a d in the first word tidy tidying up putting things in order and then we've got tiny with an in the middle like tiny ants tiny insects things that are very small we describe as tiny and that is an adjective so you can see the the minimal pair the sound in the middle pair can be at the front it can be in the middle and and this is here on our last slide it could also be at the end so we've got the word sip and set and to sip is really just to drink something but um only a little bit at a time so for example this gentleman here he's zipping some some wine you would not drink this in one go hopefully unless you really want to get drunk fast um so so that is sep and then we have sit and so here the difference is the final consonant sound per enter now set you've got an image here and i think everybody knows probably what that means so there's a difference here at the end so remember minimal pairs are a pair of words and they only the only difference is in one sound in the same position but the meaning of these two words is very different now can you think of your own minimal pair that would be great and if so write your own examples in the comment section below and i'm going to have a look at them and then i will leave a little comment and reply to check them