In today’s Embarrassing English Errors episode I teach you guys the slight difference in pronunciation between the words WONDER & WANDER.

Embarrassing English Errors: Wonder & Wander

G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Embarrassing English Errors. Today I want to do the words “Wonder” and “Wander”, “Wonder” and “Wander”.

So, both of these words can actually be a verb “To wander” or “To wonder” and a noun “A wonder”, “A wander”. With regards to the word “Wonder” as a verb it means to desire to know something, to feel curious. So, “To wonder”. “I wonder what job I’ll have in the future”. “I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow when my friend comes over”. As a noun, “A wonder” is a feeling of amazement and admiration caused by something beautiful, remarkable or unfamiliar, “A wonder”. “Have you explored the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef?”. So, that’s an example of that one.

“Wander” as a verb, “To wander”, means to walk or to move in a leisurely way. So, it’s kind of like to walk slowly with no real speed to it. It’s just to take your time and enjoy the walk. “I’m just wandering around town at the moment, I’m just going for a wander in the park”. And the noun, “A wander” is again a walk with no specific destination. So, a leisurely walk with no real specific destination. So, you could say, “I’m going for a wander in the park. I’m going for a wander in the forest. Do you want to go for a wander with me?”

So, what are some words in English that sound like “Wonder”?

Blunder

Thunder

Plunder

Chunder

Under

Sunder

And what are some words in English that sound like “Wander”?

Squander

Yonder

Ponder

Responder

Transponder

And I guess too something to discuss here quickly before we move onto the next exercises, the word “Wonder” is spelt with an “O”, “W-O-N-D-E-R”, “Wonder”. So, one way of thinking about the spelling of this when you write it if you’re trying to say that “I wonder why?” is to think of the word that is the past tense of the verb “To win”, “I won”. It sounds exactly the same. “Wonder”, “Won”, “Wonder”.

“Wander” on the other hand, is a difficult one because there aren’t too many words in English, I think, that are pronounced like an “On” sound but spelt with an “A”, but one cheat, or one little trick, could be if you’re thinking of going for “A wander”, like a walk, “A wander”, to think of the pronunciation or the spelling think of Harry Potter and his “Wand”, ‘cause that’s said in exactly the same way. “He has a wand, he uses his wand while he goes for a wander.” So, that’s one way of thinking about it.

So, let’s start by practicing the two different vowel sounds guys back to back 10 times:

Note: I’m going to spell them “Un” and “On” instead of “On” and “An”, respectively, in the following two exercises.

Un – on x 10

So, let’s go through and practice some different consonants in front of these two different vowel sounds guys.

Wun – Won

Tun – Ton

Sun – Son

Lun – Lon

Cun – Con

Fun – Fon

Stun – Ston

Blun – Blon

Drun – Dron

Yun – Yon

Vun – Von

Zun – Zon

Pun – Pon

Bun – Bon

Nun – Non

Mun – Mon

Run – Ron

And let’s finish up with some pronunciation practice of these words in their entirety 10 times back to back.

Wonder – wander x 10

So, that’s it for today guys. If you have any other suggestions with regards to sounds or words that you have difficulty pronouncing in English feel free to send me a message on Facebook or comment below on this link when I post it up and let me know what you’d like help with. Until next times guys, all the best!