Back to Minimal Pairs Exercises

Listening discrimination: Here versus Hair

Listen for the difference between the vowel in here /ɪə/ and the vowel in hair /eə/. Use your recordings to practise, compare and test yourself.

Stage 1: Meet the words

Listen to each word and look at its spelling. You can replay it at normal speed or more slowly. Use Compare pair to hear both words one after the other.

Pair 1 of 12
Word 1
here

Word 2
hair

Choose a playback button to listen.

Pair 1 of 12

Teacher's note

The HTML expects the recordings to be in a folder named sounds beside this file. Filenames must match the list in the code. “Play slowly” uses slower playback of the same recording; it may slightly change the sound quality.

Your word list includes wooed in two pairs. The same recording is reused in both places.