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How to Pronounce Equality

I will never promote inequality unless it concerns the light L and dark L 🙂

In this video, I’ll teach you how to pronounce the words ‘equal’ and ‘equality’, and help you hear the difference between the two L’s by pronouncing the words accurately and wrongly. (Which is always fun!)

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, it’s Hadar and this is the Accent’s Way.
Thank you for joining me and today we are going to talk about the important word ‘equality’. Equality.

‘Equality’ has four syllables. We begin with “i” as in ‘sit’ – “i”. So it’s not ‘ee’ – “ee-quality” – but “i”. To make this sound you want to drop your jaw bit, the tongue rolls forward and the lips are relaxed – “i” “i”. The second syllable is ‘qwaa’ – “qwaa”. A ‘k’ sound then a “wuh”, a W sound and the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ – “i-qwaa” “i-qwaa”. The next syllable is ‘luh’. An L sound and a schwa -“luh”. It’s a reduced vowel “uh” “uh” “luh”. The L is a little heavy so it’s not “la””la”. It’s not just the tip of the tongue touching the upper palate. You also engage the muscles here – “luh” – but you don’t want to make it too dark – “la” “la”. That’s a dark L and we don’t want to have it before vowels in the middle of the word.

“Luh” “luh”. “I-qwaa-luh” and then the last syllable is ‘ty’, but when the ‘t’ sound appears between two vowels, it becomes a flap T and it sounds like a D – “luh-dee” “luh-dee”. We ended up with a high E – “luh-dee”. “I-qwaa-luh-dee”. Equality. By the way, when the relaxed ‘ih’ sound as in ‘sit’, appears in a secondary stress position, meaning we hear an ‘ih’ sound but it’s not the primary stress, we often drop it to a schwa, or we can drop it to a schwa. Equality. Equality.

That’s also, okay but the proper pronunciation is ‘ick’ ‘ick’ – “i-qwaa-luh-dee”. When you say the word ‘equal’, the primary stress falls on the E, and that’s a high E – “equal” – but the word ‘equality’ is a little different, where the stress shifts to ‘qwaa’ and the tense E becomes ‘ih’. “I-qwaa-luh-dee”, “EE-qw’l”. Equality. We need more equality in the world. Equality.

Okay, that’s it! That’s the pronunciation of this word and now let’s turn it into practice and write down in the comments below one sentence with the word ‘equality’. Okay? Not only that you practice your vocabulary that way, you also help others by creating more sentences to practice because you always want to practice in context. Remember that.

Okay, that’s it! Thank you so much for watching. Please share this video with your friends if you liked it and come on over to my website to get your hands on my free audio crash course or my interactive list of the 50 most mispronounced words in English. You don’t want to miss it out. Thanks, everyone for watching and I’ll see you next week in the next video.

Bye!


The InFluency Podcast
The InFluency Podcast
229. How to pronounce 'Equality'
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5 Responses

  1. Hi Hadar, my name is Leonardo I am a native Spanish speaker I have been studying English for 6 years by myself and I love your way to teach, I’m pretty shy I hope someday to have a conversation with you, so Thanks again you are doing a wonderful job

  2. When it comes to a girl, people are often doubtful of handing over a responsibility to her. They think that girls are incapable of doing simple work and their only job is to get married and spend the rest of their lives in the kitchen. These incidents prove that equality still doesn’t exist in many parts of the world.

  3. Hi Hadar,

    When I first saw your video it caught my interest on how can extensive my knowledge in the second language, thanks a lot Hadar.

  4. Hi Hadar,
    Just to say thank you for your videos through the year.
    I will practise till the quality of my prunounciation is equal to yours.
    Rika

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