About

Welcome to MinimalPears — an interactive game for improving English listening skills with minimal pairs.

What inspired MinimalPears?

The popular book, Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner, points out that the first step of learning a foreign language is to retrain your ears.

The idea for this project began during a pronunciation session with a dedicated student in Cambodia. Words such as sheep, ship, cheap, and chip were arranged on a grid, then, a native speaker would say a word at random. The student had to listen carefully and point to what they heard.

These are called minimal pairs.

As we acquire our first language as babies, our brains are working overtime, trying to make sense of the sounds that we hear. Our brains start with a blank canvas, and hear every possible sound imaginable. Then, over years, we eventually figure out how to group the continuous spectrum of sounds into discrete chunks. What separates sh and j? When does a p become a b?

And what's fascinating is that these sound chunks are going to be completely different from those of a child with a different first language.

At first, the student's accuracy was only slightly better than luck. But as practice continued, there was already a noticeable improvement. The only problem was, how could the student practise without a native speaker sat beside them? Existing tools for practising minimal pairs online were either limited, unengaging, or lacked gamification.

And so MinimalPears was born — a free game for improving listening skills as an English language learner.

Why is phonetics fascinating?

Did you know you make two different sounds for the letter p? The amount of air we release when making the sound depends on the position of the letter in the word.

A word beginning with p like pit has a greater release of air than the p in the word spit. You can place your hand in front of your mouth and say both words. You'll feel the difference.

This is called aspiration. And we call these two different types of p allophones.

Now in Khmer, they also have this different aspiration. But each one is recognised as a completely separate sound. The difference changes the meaning of words.

If you were to learn Khmer, these are sounds you would have to practise. Otherwise you might be calling for a silk cloth instead of your father.

The same happens for English language learners.

• Japanese native speakers will struggle with r and l.

• Spanish native speakers don't distinguish between b and v.

• French native speakers don't have the sound h and so will drop it from the start of words.

• And Khmer native speakers only have one fricative sound: s. Sounds like f, v, th, z, and sh don't exist in the language.

MinimalPears helps learners practise these difficult sound pairs.

What is the MinimalPears game?

MinimalPears is a set of minimal pairs that English learners commonly struggle with.

The game involves choosing a minimal pair, for example, sheep and ship.

You will listen to a recording of one of these words. Then, the listener must choose the correct word.

The audio is provided by a male and female speaker, who use different intonations to make it a little harder. We also adjust the playback speed slightly on each listen. This is to stop your brain picking up on other cues in the audio that might give away the answer.

By using minimal pairs, we can be sure that for success, the listener must distinguish the sounds themselves.

Give the game a try. There are many minimal pairs to choose from.

Play the game