HETERONYMS PODCAST Hello and welcome to this podcast brought to you by That’s English! The Spanish Ministry of Education’s official distance learning English course. To find out more about That’s English! go to www.thatsenglish.com or contact your local Official School of Languages. In this podcast we’re going to learn about and look at some different examples of heteronyms. For those of you that don’t know what they are, heteronyms are two or more words that, although are spelt in the same way, have different meanings. Let’s take a look at some examples to understand them better. The first pair of heteronyms we have for you are close /kləʊs/ and close /kləʊz/. Close /kləʊs/ as in cerca. ‘Don’t stand so close to me’, no te pongas tan cerca de mí and close /kləʊz/ as in cerrar. ‘Please close the door behind you’, por favor, cierra la puerta detrás de ti. Both close /kləʊs/ and close /kləʊz/ are spelt the same but they are pronounced differently and have different meanings. ‘Don’t stand so close’ is an adverb and close the door is the verb to close. Let’s take a look at some more. Refuse /ˈref.juːs/, as in basura and refuse, /rɪˈfjuːz/as in negarse. Refuse /ˈref.juːs/, can be an adjective in the expression ‘a refuse centre’ or it can be a noun: ‘throw the refuse in the correct bin’. Refuse, /rɪˈfjuːz/as in negarse, is a verb. ‘I refuse to iron your clothes’. Me niego a planchar tu ropa. Once again, they are both spelt in the same way but pronounced differently; refuse /refuse. There are plenty more heteronyms, like excuse /ɪkˈskjuːs/ and excuse /ɪkˈskjuːz/. Here’s an example in the sentence: ‘I don't want to go to the party, I will have to think of an excuse’. No quiero ir a la fiesta, tendré que pensar en una excusa. Here it is used as a noun – an excuse, una excusa. And when we say excuse /ɪkˈskjuːz/, we are using the verb to be excused, retirarse, for example, ‘can I be excused from the table?’ ¿Puedo retirarme de la mesa? Two different verbs can also be heteronyms. Here are two: Row /rəʊ/ and row /raʊ/. Let’s start with row /rəʊ/, which is remar. ‘You row a boat using oars’, translates to: un bote se rema con remos . The other verb is ‘to row’ /raʊ/; to argue, discutir. Let’s see it in a sentence: ‘My sister and I row regularly but we always sort it out’. Mi hermana y yo nos peleamos a menudo, pero siempre lo solucionamos. As it happens, I am part of a rowing club and my fellow oarsmen and I are always rowing when we’re rowing. Formo parte de un club de remo y mis compañeros de remo y yo siempre discutimos cuando estamos remando. Now, have you ever played the board game Cluedo? La porra is the leadpipe or pipe made of lead so as I am sure you have figured out, lead /led/ is the metal, plomo and is another heteronym example when paired up with lead /liːd/. Lead has various meanings but we will look at the verb to lead as in to take by guiding in this common saying: ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’. Puedes llevar un caballo al agua, pero no puedes hacer que beba. It means you can guide someone to do something but you can’t force them to do it. The last two words we are going to learn about are a little special. As there is a slight difference in spelling, they are actually homophones but as they are often confused, I think they are worth mentioning here. They are desert /ˈdezət/ and dessert /dɪˈzɜːt/. Desert has one s and dessert has two. Let’s take a look at their meanings. Desert, with one s, is el desierto in Spanish. The Sahara Desert is a proper noun. Dessert means postre. So if you were in the desert, you would be eating your dessert surrounded by sand! Si estuvieras en el desierto, ¡estarías comiendo tu postre rodeado de arena! There are many, many more examples of heteronyms, too many for this podcast. Why not visit our blog post on the topic for more examples or you can let us know of any others you can think of, we’re sure you know some. Thanks for listening. We hope you have enjoyed this podcast, brought to you by That's English! Please follow us on social media. We look forward to hearing from you. Bye for now!