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
For clown, the tongue tip is already on the ridge behind the teeth while the k is held, so the k bursts out around the sides of the tongue and the l is there at once. For crown, the lips are already rounding during the k, and the burst comes out through them like "kw".
The "ow" glide runs long, so there's time to compare how it starts: crown starts its glide dark and low, clown starts it bright. Japanese usually calls a clown ピエロ, so クラウン sounds like crown to most ears. If crown is your first guess, check whether the start was bright.
Studies: Logan et al. 1991 · Lively et al. 1993 · Lively et al. 1994 · Bradlow et al. 1997 · Bradlow et al. 1999
R has a darker, rounded ring. L sounds lighter and clearer.
More word pairs with these sounds
- play · pray
- flesh · fresh
- light · right
- long · wrong
- cloud · crowd
- glass · grass
- fly · fry
- collect · correct
Start hearing the difference.
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