Minimal Pairs

Minimal pairs are two words that differ by just one sound, like ship and sheep or light and right. There are 46 pairs here, each with clear British English recordings. Students listen and choose the word they hear, or match six words to their sounds.

Try it: heat and hit Choose a pair

How it works

Pick a pair of sounds below. Switch activity with the tabs at the top of the page.
Listen and choose: press the speaker, then choose the word you heard. There are ten rounds, and after each answer students can play both words to compare.
Match: six speakers, six words. Students play each sound and tap the word that matches it, then press Check.

There's also a Say it tab, where students say a word into the microphone and see what the computer heard. It's just for fun: speech recognition often gets these sounds wrong, even when the word is said perfectly, so don't use it to judge pronunciation.

Each sound has its own colour, blue for the first and orange for the second, so students link the symbol to the sound.

Choose a pair

Vowel sounds

Long and short vowels, and the diphthongs that learners mix up most.

Consonant sounds

Voiced and unvoiced pairs, th, l and r, and the endings -n, -ng and -nk.

Ideas for using it

Whole-class vote. Put Listen and choose on the board. Play the word, and students hold up one finger for the blue word or two for the orange word before you click. You see at a glance who can hear the difference.
Teacher says it. Turn the sound off and say one of the two words yourself. Then let a student take your place and say a word for the class to choose.
Pairs dictation. Students work in pairs with the word cards on screen. One says a word, the other points to it. Swap after five words.
Mouth check. Before listening, show the two key words and ask students how their mouth changes between them: lips round or spread, tongue forward or back, voice on or off.
Little and often. Choose the pairs your students find hardest and use one as a five-minute warmer each lesson.

Which pairs should I start with?

Most learners: /iː/ and /ɪ/ (heat, hit), /æ/ and /e/ (man, men) and /s/ and /θ/.
Japanese speakers: /l/ and /r/ and /b/ and /v/.
Korean speakers: /f/ and /p/ and /l/ and /r/.
Spanish speakers: /b/ and /v/, /s/ and /z/ and /iː/ and /ɪ/.
German and Turkish speakers: /v/ and /w/ and /æ/ and /e/.

Questions

Is the audio British or American? British English. Some pairs sound different in American English, and a few, like pot and port, only work in accents that don't pronounce the r.
Can the computer check my pronunciation? Not reliably. The Say it tab uses the browser's speech recognition (Chrome or Edge, with a microphone), which guesses the closest real word. With minimal pairs it often hears the wrong one, even from native speakers. Treat it as a game, and use your own ears, or a teacher's, to judge.
Do students need to know the symbols? No. The coloured key words are enough. The symbols are there for teachers and for students who want to learn them.

More activities

Try Word Ladders, where changing one letter often changes one sound, or the Countdown letters game. For more ideas, browse our exercises and activities.

Try it: heat and hit