Minimal pair

**IPA consonants**

**Minimal pairs** are pairs of words which differ in only one phonological element.

English contains many minimal pairs, and well-known examples are the words *ship* and *sheep* and *tree* and *three*.

Likewise, many students find it hard to come to terms with the fact that most verbs in English change tense using only one tiny little sound and they often need ongoing practice in pronouncing such differences.

Not all minimal pairs are difficult to set apart. For example *bat* and *boot*, *swim* and *swam*, *rose* and *doze*, *bush* and *book*. This article is concerned with difficult minimal pairs.

According to Wikipedia, author Gillian Brown has criticized this approach as being artificial and lacking in relevance to language learners' needs.

## Differences in consonants

These can be grouped together by initial sound or final sound:

### Initial sound

choose - Jews; choose - shoes; chop - shop; cheese - she's; day - they; sink - zinc; think - sink; three - tree;

### Final sound

Two similar consonants: badge - batch; life - live *(adj.)*; sin - sing; some/sum - sun/son; watch - wash;

One extra sound at the end: bill - build; chain - change; fine - find; hell - help; sell - self; star - start;

The following are especially common:

* /d/ vs /t/: grade - great; hard – heart; made - mate; played - plate; raid - rate; ride – right/write; said - set; side/sighed - sight/site; stayed - state; thread - threat; tide/tied - tight; weighed - weight; white - wide;
* **/z/** vs **/s/**: eyes - ice; lose - loose; phase - face; plays - place; prize - price; raise/rays - race; rise - rice;

### Sound in the middle of the word

alive - arrive; decree - degree; money - mummy; precedent - president; simple - symbol

## Differences in vowels

* Monosyllables:
	+ /æ/ vs /ʌ/: back - buck; ban- bun; bat - but; cat - cut; lack - luck; mad - mud; pack - puck; stack - stuck; staff - stuff; swam - swum; ran - run; tan - ton;
	+ **/ɪ/** vs **/iː/**: bit - beat/beet; chip - cheap; dip - deep; fill - feel; filled - field; hid - heed; hit - heat; live (vb.) – leave; ship - sheep; sit - seat; still - steal/steel; will - wheel;
	+ **/aɪ/** vs **/eɪ/**: height - hate; light - late; plight - plate; ride - raid; right/write - rate; white - wait/weight; wide - wade;
	+ various: great - greet; line - loin; nose - noise; soup - soap; state - estate; walk - work;
* Polysyllables: apologies - apologise; batter - butter; bottle - battle;

## Differences in word stress

* re**cord** (vb) – **re**cord (n); wee**kend** – **wea**kened; be**low** - **bel**low;

## "Nasty neighbors"/commonly confused words

As well as the minimal pairs mentioned above, there are several words which, while not strictly minimal pairs, are sufficiently similar to each other so as to cause problems for many students. Examples such as *foot* /fʊt/ - *food* /fuːd/ can be hard to distinguish as they not only have similar - but to the native ear, different - vowels, but also similar consonants, thereby making them doubly treacherous.

Other nasty neighbors are minimal pairs, but contrary to reason, the different letter is not the one that changes in sound.

* loose /luːs/ - lose /luːz/
* prophecy /ˈprɒfəsɪ/ - prophesy /ˈprɒfəsaɪ/
* woman /wʊmən/ - women /wɪmən/

These examples vary one letter and two sounds. See Not quite minimal pairs.

* breath /breθ/ - breathe /briːð/
* desert /ˈdezərt/ - dessert /dɪˈzɜːrt/ *(note that the verb* desert *is also pronounced* /dɪˈzɜːrt/)

## References

1. ↑ Wikipedia, minimal pair
2. ↑ Cited in Wikipedia: G. Brown (1990), *Listening to Spoken English*. pp. 144–146.

## See also

* Digraph
* Homophone
* International Phonetic Alphabet
* Pronunciation and decoding exercises: /s/ vs /z/
* Word stress