Minimal Pair List Vowels 10 and 19, /ʌ/ versus / eə / 24 pairs
The /ʌ/ vowel is spelled with <u>, <o> in
worry
and <oo> in
blood
. The /
eə
/ vowel is spelled <ear>, <air>, <are> and <ar> in
Pharaoh
.
This is a contrast between a short vowel and a diphthong fairly well separated in the mouth. It does not seem to be a problem for many learners.
The density figure is 2.49%. The set makes 20 semantic contrasts for a loading of 83%.
blood blared
borough bearer
boroughs bearers
bud bared
bun bairn
buns bairns
buzz bares
cud cared
does dares
dud dared
flood flared
furrow Pharaoh
furrows Pharaohs
fuzz fairs
hurry hairy
none Nairn
nun Nairn
scud scared
scurry scary
spud spared
stud stared
us airs
worry wary
worrier warier
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John Higgins
John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials.
His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.
