Pronunciation – QU

How do you make the “qu” sound in English? Learn the differences between the sound of words like “quite”, “quit”, and “quiet”, and learn how to say the QU sound in English easily!

TRANSCRIPT:
Hello everyone. My name is Ronnie. Today I’m going to teach you some pronunciation. Are you confused or do you become a little bit scared when you see this ‘q’ and ‘u’ together, and you’re not too sure how to pronounce it?

First of all one very important spelling trick, especially if you do crosswords is “q” must always be followed by “u” in English. So every time you have a “q” you must follow it by a “u”. This is the capital “Q” and this is the baby, small “q.”

Most of the times when you see the “q” written it will be with a smaller “q” so spelling “q-u” 100% of the time, all of the time. Pronunciation is like this. It sounds like a “k” and a “w” together, so the sound is like ‘”kw” – “kw” – “kw” – “kw” -“kw” -“kw.” Try and do that, “kw” – “kw.” Your mouth goes open at the end.

Let’s try our very first word. It’s a word that’s very common in a lot of story books for children or in newspapers. The first word is “queen – queen.” So if you take the first ‘”q-u” sound, you’re going to make it like a “kw”, so it’s like “queen’ – “queen”. The queen, of course, is always a woman who is married to a “king.” The king and the queen sometimes are monarchs of some countries.

The next word is “q-u – quilt, q-u – quilt.” When you say the “q-u” sound, it is unvoiced so it does not vibrate, so it’s “q-u – q-u – quilt.” A quilt, it’s a blanket. Sometimes people do “quilting” as a hobby, but a “quilt” is just basically a difficult word to pronounce for blanket, again it’s the “k and w” – “quilt.”

The other thing that’s very important is that you always are very, very strong in your pronunciation of the “t”‘ sound at the end of the word, because if you don’t, it could sound like this word “quill”, so if you don’t say the “t” here, it could sound like you’re saying “quill.”

“Quill” is a very, very old writing instrument that they used hundreds of years ago and it was basically a feather. What is a feather? A feather is a bird hair. Let me draw you a feather, shall I? So a “quill” is a bird feather and what they did was, they put ink at the nib of the feather, and they were able to write before they had the modern pens, pencils, or iPhones. This word is “quill – quill, not quilt.”

And the one in-between, this we don’t really use this word a lot, but it is still in our vocabulary, in my vocabulary. This word is “quaint.” “That’s quaint.” “Quaint” means it’s cute or nice. Some very, very small cities in Canada, that haven’t been overrun with condominiums you could describe as being quaint. So: “queen, quilt, quaint, and quill” If you can practice the “kw” sound, you’ll have much ease at saying these words.

The next three words, they’re a “doozy” and by “doozy” I mean “Oh, my god. How do I say this one? How do, which, which, which?” Even when I read these words or see these words, I have to think about is it “quaint, quick, quiet?” What, what, what was it? What is it?

So let me help you. What you have to do is look at the spelling of these words. This one’s the easiest, because you have the “kw” sound, and then you have “it.” So it’s “kw – it – q-u – it – quit. “Quit” means to stop doing something. So, for example, you can “quit smoking.” You can “quit your job.” You can “quit learning English, but you can’t do that now,” so this word is “quit.” It means to stop doing something.

This word is almost the same spelling as this word, and this word, but there is sneaky little “e” here. So if you have the first part of the word, it’s “k-w” with our “k-w” sound. Then we have an “i” and you can say it like an “i.” And then we have “e-t” at the end, so it’s “k-w – i – e-t – quiet” This word “sh-h-h- quiet” means don’t talk. So this word you can break down, as a “q-u” sound, so “k-w and i, and an e-t” is “quiet – quiet – quit.”

Then we come to this one with the “e” at the end. This word is “quite – quite”. So it would rhyme with the word “white”. So you can rhyme “quite, and white – quite – white”. “Quite” basically means “very.” I can say “Wow, it’s quite cold today in Canada.” It’s the same as saying it’s very cold.

The reason why this is so difficult is because you only have one letter. The only thing that’s different here is the “e” has switched positions this one is easier, because there is no “e.” So one more time, this is “quite – quiet – sh-h-h, and quit.”

If you would not like to quit studying English, go to engvid.com and learn some more, Good Bye.

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