Real clips from the app. Turn your sound on.
Hear both words in 10 voices
Each row is one speaker saying both words. Play one, then the other, and switch to slow when the difference hides.
- American woman, younger
- American woman, older
- American man, younger
- American man, older
- British woman, younger
- British woman, older
- British man, younger
- British man, older
- Australian woman
- Australian man
What's different
After s, the t has no puff of air, so the vowel starts at once and you hear all of it. Star opens wide: the jaw drops for a clear "ah". Stir barely opens: it's the muffled "er" of bird, with the jaw only slightly open.
American voices give a second clue. Stir is r-colored from its very first moment, so the whole vowel sounds like one long r. Star starts on a plain "ah" and only curls into r at the end. British and Australian voices drop the r, so compare how far the mouth opens.
Studies: Lambacher et al. 2002 · Lambacher et al. 2005
ɜː (heard) is a muffled, central sound. ɑː (hard) is open and clear.
More word pairs with these sounds
Hearing heard and hard apart: all 12 pairs →Start hearing the difference.
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