In this episode of Embarrassing English Errors Ep14: Shit & Sheet I teach you guys the subtle difference in pronunciation between the words “Shit” and “Sheet”, which can often lead to some embarrassing misunderstands in English.

Embarrassing English Errors Ep14: Shit & Sheet

G’day guys and welcome to this episode of Embarrassing English Errors. Today we’re going to work on the two words “shit” and “sheet”. And this was another one that my Spanish friends got me onto because they often hated talking about their bed sheets.

So, “A sheet” is that layer of cloth or that layer of fabric that you would put on your bed. Or you can have a sheet of something, which tends to just mean a thin layer of something. So, a sheet of paper, a sheet of cloth, a sheet of metal.

And obviously, “Shit” is a rude word that refers to poo, a turd, a crap, “Shit”.

So, you can obviously see that if you confuse the word “Sheet” for “Shit” it can lead to some pretty embarrassing situations, say, if you were trying to talk about “Have you cleaned your sheets” and you accidentally said, “Have you cleaned your shits”. Or you say, you know, “I need… I need a sheet”, you could accidentally say “I needa shit”, which makes it sound like you need to go to the toilet. Or you could say “I’m putting sheets on my bed” and instead of saying sheets you say “I’m putting shits on my bed”, which sounds very bizarre, and will probably get a lot people to laugh if anything. So, don’t be too worried about making these kinds of errors guys just… it’s just one thing to be aware of and that you can always practice to try and fix up. So, hence these episodes.

So, the word “Sheet”, what are some other words in English that have this same “Eet” or “Ee” sound?

Beat

Cheat

Fleet

Greet

Feet

Meet

Heat

Neat

Peat

Street

Treat

Tweet

And “Shit”, and some other words in English that have the same “It” sound from “Shit”.

Bit

Fit

Grit

Hit

Split

Wit

Slit

Spit

Twit

Pit

Knit

And now we can go through some made up words to practice these two different vowel sounds.

It – Eet

Bit – Beet

Lit – Leet

Sit – Seet

Pit – Peet

Fit – Feet

Blit – Bleet

Thit – Theet

Frit – Freet

Clit – Cleet

And now we’ll do these two different vowel sounds five times back to back.

Ee – Ih x 5

And now we can do “Sheet” and “Shit” 10 times back to back.

Sheet – Shit x 10

So that’s today’s episode guys. I hope it’s helped, and if you have any other words that you’re having trouble pronouncing in English feel free to send me a message or comment on Facebook, and I’ll chat to you next time. See you later guys!