In Embarrassing English Errors Ep06 I teach you the subtle difference in pronunciation between the words “cock” and “cook”.

Download the full PDF transcript here.

Embarrassing English Errors Ep06: Cock & Cook

G’day guys and welcome to this episode of Embarrassing English Errors.

Today’s episode is on the two words “cock” and “cook”. So, “cock” and “cook”. And these are two words that you should definitely try and pronounce differently seeing as is a rude word. It’s a slang word for penis, for dick. Um… low to medium rudeness. It’s pretty benign. People aren’t really going to scream or, you know, faint in shock if you say the word “cock”. But again you don’t want to confuse it with “cook”. And the word “cook”, “to cook”. It’s a verb and it means to prepare food, you know? Prepare food to eat. I want to cook something. I think I might cook tonight.

So, you can obviously see that if you accidentally say, “I think I might cock tonight” instead of, “I think I might cook tonight”, if you accidentally switch these words around it’s going to lead to some embarrassing situations.

So, what are some other words in English that have that same “oh” sound from “cock”?

Cod

Cob

Con

Lock

Shock

Conk

Cog

Mock

Cost

Cop

Stock

Cough

And some other words in English that have the “oo” sound from “cook”.

Book

Look

Took

Crook

Brook

Hook

Rook

Cookbook

Sook

So now let’s practice these vowel sounds five times back to back.

Oh – Oo x 5

And now we’ll practice with a few different consonants at the start ending in “ock” and “ook”.

Lock – Look

Bock – Book

Shock – Shook

Thock – Thook

Plock – Plook

Throck – Throok

Strock – Strook

Wock – Wook

Brock – Brook

And now we’ll just do the words “cock” and “cook” ten times back to back.

Cock – Cook x 10

So, I hope you liked that episode guys. I hope it’s helped you differentiate between the pronunciation of “cook” and “cock”. So, it’s definitely a good way of training your ear so that you can hear the slight difference in those “oh” and “oo” vowel sounds in English, and so that you can then say these words without having to worry about whether or not you’re accidentally, you know, pronouncing the wrong word when you want to say “cook” instead of “cock”, and it’s going to lead to embarrassing situations. So, make sure you jump on Facebook guys or on the website www.TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheAussieEnglishPodcast . Let me know what you think of these episodes guys and if you have any other sounds or words that you’re having difficulty with in English feel free to send me a message or a comment and I’ll try and do an episode on whatever it is that is troubling you as soon as I can. All the best guys!