Listen and Repeat: the English sounds that change the word, with drills
The sounds that cost points in TOEFL Listen and Repeat: th, w and v, long and short vowels, final clusters and -ed, with minimal pairs and a daily drill.
Updated 6 November 2026 · 8 min read
Why sounds matter in this task
Listen and Repeat is one of the two Speaking tasks on the 2026 TOEFL® iBT. You hear 7 sentences in a campus or academic scenario and repeat each one exactly as you hear it, with no preparation time. The sentences get longer and more complex as the set goes on.
A 5 goes only to a repetition that is exact and fully intelligible. Two signs of a 4 on the Speaking scoring guide are worth noticing:
- markers of tense or number (such as a past -ed or a plural -s) that are missing or wrong, and
- one or two content words that are unclear because of imprecise pronunciation.
So in this task a missing sound can cost you more than an accent. If asked comes out as ask, you have changed the tense, not only the pronunciation. The sounds below are the ones that most often change a word in this way, because many languages do not have them, or do not separate them the way English does. Find the ones your own language lacks and work on those.
1. The "th" sounds: /θ/ and /ð/
think, three, anything (/θ/) and this, though, another (/ð/)
Most languages have neither sound. Speakers usually replace them with the nearest sounds they do have: /t/ and /d/ (tink, dis), /s/ and /z/ (sink, zis) or /f/ and /v/ (fink, vis). Each replacement is a real English word some of the time, which is why the key hears a different word.
| /θ/ | vs | /ð/ | vs |
|---|---|---|---|
| think | sink / tink | then | den / zen |
| thank | tank | they | day |
| three | tree / free | breathe | breeze |
| path | pass | though | dough |
Drill. Put the tip of your tongue lightly between your teeth and push air out. For /θ/ your voice is off; for /ð/ it is on (touch your throat to feel it). Say each pair five times slowly, then five times at normal speed.
Sentence practice (from Skorway's practice sets):
If anything spills, let someone know straight away rather than trying to clean it alone.
Any result not recorded in the shared notebook is treated as though the experiment never took place.
2. /w/ and /v/
west, twelve, whenever (/w/) and very, leave, arrive (/v/)
Many languages have one of these sounds and not the other, or one sound that sits between them, so west comes out as vest, wet as vet, or, over-correcting, very as wery. English keeps them apart, and the pairs below show how often the swap makes another word.
| /w/ | /v/ |
|---|---|
| wet | vet |
| west | vest |
| wine | vine |
| worse | verse |
| while | vile |
Drill. For /w/, round your lips as if to blow out a candle and keep your teeth away from your lips. For /v/, rest your top teeth on your bottom lip and let your voice buzz. Practise in a mirror: if your teeth touch your lip, it is a /v/.
Children under twelve should stay with an adult in the chemistry room.
Please sign in whenever you arrive or leave.
Twelve is a good test word because it has both sounds.
3. Long and short vowels
leave vs live, seat vs sit, pool vs pull
English separates a long, tense /iː/ from a short, relaxed /ɪ/, and a long /uː/ from a short /ʊ/. Many languages have one vowel where English has two, so both come out the same. Listeners then have to guess between leave and live, or sheep and ship.
| Long | Short |
|---|---|
| leave | live |
| seat | sit |
| sheep | ship |
| feel | fill |
| pool | pull |
| fool | full |
Drill. The short vowel is not only shorter; your mouth is more relaxed. Say seat with a smile and sit with a looser jaw. Then make a sentence that uses both: "Please take a seat and sit still."
4. The vowel in "bird"
bird, first, work, heard, returned
Few languages have this vowel, and speakers reach for the nearest one they do have, often a rounded vowel like the one in bored or an open one like the one in bard. The risk is when another English word is close by: work can sound like walk, and first like fast.
| "bird" vowel | Nearby word |
|---|---|
| work | walk |
| word | ward |
| first | fast |
| heard | hard |
| shirt | short |
| burn | barn |
Drill. Keep your lips neutral (not rounded, not smiling) and your tongue in the middle of your mouth. In American English the tongue also curls slightly for the r. In British English there is no r sound, only a long middle vowel. Pick one accent and stay consistent.
Safety comes first in here.
Books borrowed from another branch can be returned here at no extra charge.
5. Consonant clusters, especially at the end of words
asked, texts, months, starts, lasts
At the start of words. Many languages do not allow two consonants at the start of a syllable, so speakers add a vowel to break them up: school becomes eschool or sekool, and student becomes estudent. Practise sp-, st-, str-, sk- words starting directly on the /s/: spills, study, straight, school.
At the end of words. English allows long final clusters, and in fast speech learners tend to drop one consonant. This is where you lose grammar: starts becomes start, asked becomes ask. In a repetition task, that is a changed word.
Voicing at the end. Many languages turn a final b, d, g or z into p, t, k or s. In English that changes the word: bag becomes back, prize becomes price. Practise bag/back, cab/cap, prize/price, had/hat. Hold the voice through the final consonant and make the vowel before it slightly longer.
The three sounds of -ed
| Ending sounds like | When | Examples from practice sentences |
|---|---|---|
| /t/ | after voiceless sounds like k, p, s, sh | checked, booked |
| /d/ | after voiced sounds and vowels | borrowed, returned, labelled |
| /ɪd/ | after t or d | recorded, treated |
Tickets are checked at the main door.
The planetarium show starts every hour and lasts about twenty minutes.
A ten-minute daily routine
- Two minutes: one sound, minimal pairs. Pick a sound from this guide. Say each pair slowly, then quickly. Record yourself and listen back: can you tell which word you said?
- Three minutes: build long sentences backwards. Long sentences are hard to remember as well as to say. Start from the end and add words: "…took place." → "…never took place." → "…as though the experiment never took place." Your memory follows the meaning, and the clusters at the end get practised most.
- Three minutes: repeat at full speed. Play a sentence once, repeat it once. No replaying, as in the test.
- Two minutes: check the grammar endings. Write down what you said and compare it with the original. Circle any missing -s, -ed or small words like the, a and of.
What not to worry about
You do not need to sound American or British. A 5 needs an exact, fully intelligible repetition, not a native accent. An accent that keeps every word and every ending clear meets that description. Put your time into the sounds that change words, not into the ones that only change your accent.
Find out which sounds cost you points
Reading a list of sounds tells you which ones exist; it does not tell you which ones you lose. Skorway's free mock includes the full Speaking section, 7 Listen and Repeat sentences and 4 interview questions, recorded through your microphone against the real clock with no preparation time. The scoring compares the words it heard with the sentence you were given, so a dropped -ed, a sink for think or a vest for west shows up as a marked word in your report, and the practice sets then drill that sound in new sentences. A band for Speaking a few minutes after you finish, and the two or three sounds to work on this week. No credit card.
Correct for the TOEFL iBT as it runs on 6 November 2026. TOEFL® is a registered trademark of ETS. Skorway is not endorsed or approved by ETS.