Today I discovered the word "scurry" and I immediately found that I couldn't tell it apart with "scary". I looked it up and found that it boils down to differentiating ɝ and ɛ, at least according to these Wiktionary entries:

scurry

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scurry

Audio

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scurry.ogg

scary

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scary

Audio:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scary.ogg

They seem to sound same to me at this point. How could I learn to tell the difference? One idea that comes to my head is to look for words that only differ by this sound, but I'm not sure how to start looking.

Today I discovered the word "scurry" and I immediately found that I couldn't tell it apart with "scary". I looked it up and found that it boils down to differentiating /ɝ/ and /ɛ/, at least according to these Wiktionary entries:

• scurry

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scurry

Audio

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scurry.ogg

• scary

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scary

Audio:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scary.ogg

They seem to sound the same to me at this point. How could I learn to tell the difference? One idea that comes to my head is to look for words that only differ by this sound, but I'm not sure how to start looking.

Today I discovered the word "scurry" and I immediately found that I couldn't tell it apart with "scary". I looked it up and found that it boils down to differentiating ɝ and ɛ. They seem to sound same to me at this point. How could I learn to tell the difference? One idea that comes to my head is to look for words that only differ by this sound, but I'm not sure how to start looking.

Today I discovered the word "scurry" and I immediately found that I couldn't tell it apart with "scary". I looked it up and found that it boils down to differentiating ɝ and ɛ, at least according to these Wiktionary entries:

scurry

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scurry

Audio

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scurry.ogg

scary

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scary

Audio:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEn-us-scary.ogg

They seem to sound same to me at this point. How could I learn to tell the difference? One idea that comes to my head is to look for words that only differ by this sound, but I'm not sure how to start looking.