Simple words are often the ones most commonly mispronounced. People tend to pronounce “says” and “said” with the same vowel sound as the root word “say”.
Whilst “say” is pronounced with the diphthong “ay”, “says” and “said” are pronounced with the short vowel sound “eh”, as in bed.
Here are some other simple words that people often get wrong because of the wrong vowel sound.
| Word | Pronunciation | How To Pronounce |
| Say | say | Listen to the Say audio clip |
| Says | sez | Listen to the Says audio clip |
| Said | sed | Listen to the Said audio clip |
| Red | red | Listen to the Red audio clip |
| Bed | bed | Listen to the Bed audio clip |
| Bread | bred | Listen to the Bread audio clip |
Source: Edited from the english@work e-newsletter by 938LIVE. Subscribe to the english@work newsletter.
