English words can be really confusing sometimes. In these how-to-pronounce episodes published on Fridays, I'll help you with the pronunciation of confusing words and common names. This week we're going to talk about pairs such as 'party' and 'potty', and explain about the A as in father before an R sound.

Here's a loose transcription of the words as explained in the episode:

• party: paar-di [IPA: pɑːrɾi]
• potty: paa-di [IPA: pɑːɾi]

• car: kaar [IPA: kɑːr]
• part: kaar [IPA: kɑːr]
• hard: haard [IPA: hɑːrd]
• start: staart [IPA: stɑːrt]
• starting: staar-ding [IPA: stɑːrɾɪŋ]
• harder: haard'r [IPA: hɑːrɾər]
• hotter: haad'r [IPA: hɑːɾər]
• farther: faarth'r [IPA: fɑːrðər]
• father: faath'r [IPA: fɑːðər]
• further: f'rth'r [IPA: ˈfɜːrðər]

If you want to improve your accent and understand spoken English better, download my free American Accent audio crash course: https://hadarshemesh.com/audio-accent-course/

You can also download an interactive list of 50 of the most mispronounced words in English and master the pronunciation of those tricky words: https://hadarshemesh.com/50-most-mispronounced-words/

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