Close to or Closed to? Can You Hear the Difference?

This is the All-Ears English Podcast. Close to or close to. Can you hear the difference? Welcome to the All-Ears English Podcast. Downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl. Coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All-Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allyoursenglish.com/app. Can you tell the difference when a native speaker says close to versus close to? Today, let's figure out how they're different and how to make sure you never get confused again. Many English learners focus on grammar. They want their sentences to be correct. But fluency isn't just about correctness. It's about sounding natural, choosing the right phrase, responding quickly without translating every thought in your head. That's why someone can know a lot of grammar rules and still feel uncomfortable in conversations. Real fluency comes from understanding patterns, tone, and natural expressions. Our free two-minute fluency quiz helps you discover your level and what skills will move you forward. Go to allyoursenglish.com/fluencyscore. That's allyoursenglish.com/F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey there, Michelle. How's everything today? Everything is good. How are you? Feeling good, Michelle? Is there a new friend that you've gotten close to recently in your life? Yeah, actually, I've gotten close to a lot of new friends recently. I've talked about how I moved to the suburbs. And I was really worried that it would be really hard to make friends. Because it's so different than the city life. But I've actually gotten close to a lot of people. And I feel really lucky. Amazing. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I've gotten close to a lot of people. So what I asked you at the top of the show is, is there anyone you've gotten close to recently? Michelle, what is another word that might get confusing or confused in our listeners' minds? Yeah. So close to, right? But then there's also closed to. Right. Very different though. Very different. But they sound really similar in English. And it's easy to mix up the spelling or even to pronounce it wrong. Because there's only really a one letter difference that D. But it changes both the meaning and the pronunciation. Yeah. So I'm really glad that we're here today for really a pronunciation episode for our listeners or listening episode. Right. So let's play a little game, Michelle. I'm going to use both of the words. I want to see if you can hear the difference. Here we go. I live close to the park, but it's closed to the public for a special event. Ooh. It's hard to hear. Yeah, it's hard to hear, but yeah, I mean, because even native speakers get confused or misused these sometimes. So I did hear close to the park, right? So nearby, right? But then closed to the public. But what was interesting is I didn't really hear that D, Lindsay. No, you didn't hear the D. Yes. Oh my god. That makes it even more complicated. The way we pronounce it's in American English. We don't necessarily say closed to the public. We say it, but it's closed to the public. It blends right in with the to sound in the to. Right. It does. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So we're going to focus today on the difference in pronunciation between these two words. So that you can both hear and say each correctly. But guys, before we get into it, we want to remind you to hit follow wherever you're listening to the All-Ears English podcast. Yeah, guys. Don't miss your opportunity to make All-Ears English drop into your listening Q five days a week. So make sure you are following. If you're on Apple or Spotify. If you're on YouTube, make sure you are subscribed. Yes. All right. Michelle, let's break down the pronunciation and make it super easy for our listeners. Shall we? Yes. So first, we'll start with close to. So C-L-O-S-E. Two. Right. So this one has a soft S sound. Right. And it's short, right? So close to. Close to. Close to. Right. This means physically near you. So let's do a little role play. Lindsay, what do you live close to? I live close to Trader Joe's. I know. That'd be so jealous. I'm not a big Trader Joe's person, actually. I don't feel like they're in my experience in the Trader Joe's that I've gone to their produce is not like the freshest. So I have heard that about Trader Joe's. And sometimes I find it. It's a very good price. But then you get it. And like two days later, my tomatoes are done. Yeah. Exactly. They have a lot of good package stuff. Yeah. People are either Trader Joe's fans or not. It's like, you're only one of two camps. See it out. Yes. Yes. Exactly. What about you, Michelle? What do you live close to? I live close to the baseball stadium. It gets noisy during games. Yes. All right. So this one is all about proximity, right? Close to. It's shorter. It has a soft S. C-L-O-S-E. Yes. So let's go over closed to. So that's C-L-O-S-E-D to. So this one has more of a Z sound, right? It's not close to closed to. Yeah. But also as we were touching on before, the D is very subtle and you might not even hear it. Or Lindsay, as you said, it could blend with the T in two. Yes. This one means shut or unavailable. Right. If you want to know more guys about letters blending with each other, check out our pronunciation course over at allersenglish.com/pronunciation. We went into all of this. All the different things that happen when letters and sounds collapse into each other, blend into each other. We show you everything in a study plan. But I mean, let's do a roleplay today just to see the differences here with closed to. Right? Okay. So, Michelle, is the library open today? No, it's under renovation. So it's closed to the public for a while. Yeah. Okay. And let's do another one. Okay. Why is the road blocked? Because it's Sunday. It's closed to cars, but it's open for pedestrians. It's the city's way of getting people out and about. It's closed to cars. It's closed to cars. I cannot tell the difference between where the D ends and where the T begins into. Right. Like, right. Right. Exactly. So, after the break, I think we're going to go and do a little game and see if we can tell the difference. Yeah. And just a note here. We're teaching you American English today on this show and every day. Occasionally, we have British people on or Australia's on. British people might pronounce the S and the Z sounds a little more softly, but you will still hear a difference. But just listen to British English to see that difference. Okay. That's not right. Okay. Game time, Michelle. So, which is which? All right. Should I quiz you or should you quiz me? How should we go? We can go back to back and forth. Okay. Back and forth. All right. You go first. All right. The museum is closed to the public today. Tough one, but I think that one is closed to. So, inaccessible. Right? Yes. Exactly. The convenience store is closed to my house. Okay. Close to. Right. CLOSE. Nearby. So, what's interesting is here is Lindsay, you know, our listeners might be getting confused because they're waiting for that D sound with the first one. Right. But it's not coming. So, instead, I think it's really good to focus on the length of the word. And also, if there's an S versus a Z sound, right? So, the museum is closed to the public today. So, close. Close to. Yeah. That's a good point, Michelle. It's really more stretched out. It's stretched out. It takes longer to say close to the public. Close to the public instead of close to my house. Close to my house. And that has more of an S sound, right? So, close. And close. Yeah. So, okay. So, here's the next one. My office is close to the beach. tricky, but I think it is CLOSE. Close. Yep. Got it. Yep. The gym is closed to the, I'm sorry, let's start again. Start again. Here we go. The gym is closed to members this week. Yes. So, that's CLOSED. Yeah. Now, Michelle, are there any patterns that we can, I mean, we've given a listener a few patterns. Is there anything else we can try to look for to know which one we're going to be? we're using. Yeah, I mean, so we often say close to and a place. You know, we could say I'm close to my friend, right? But often it's about a place. But we rarely say closed to and a place. So close to could kind of be either, right? But closed to, you don't really say like closed to trader Joe's right? It's no, no, no, pretty rare. It doesn't really make sense. It's usually closed to and a group of people like the public visitors, customers or things like cars. Right. Because we're just saying this place cannot be accessed by these people. The public, the customers, the visitors, right? It's something is, access is closed. Closed. Closed. There we go. Closed. So yeah, I think we covered it, but should we do a role play? I think we should. Michelle, let's do it. So here we're meeting during our lunch break and we're deciding where to go for lunch. Okay. Okay. Hey, Michelle, where are we meeting today? Let's go to the cafe close to my office. Oh, I love that place, but it's closed to customers today. Oh, really? Why? Well, they're renovating this week. So it's close to the public, but it should be really cool when it opens back up. Oh, okay, bomber. There's also a cute friend trust drawn close to my office. That's right. I've been meaning to try it. Let's double check to make sure it's not closed. Okay. Again, I mean, when we're speaking fast, it is really hard to hear the difference, but we've given our listeners some clues today. So hopefully they should be starting to pick up on this in the role play. So Michelle, the first one you said was, let's go to the cafe close to my office. Is that close or closed? Which one did we use? Close C L O S E, right? Shorter sounding S sound. And we're talking about a place nearby. Exactly. Yeah. And there you go close to the place, my office. What else? Then I use that. I love that place, but it's closed to customers today. Stretched out C L O S E D. So it's more stretched out, closed and a Z sound. And also people after it. It's closed to whom? It's closed to customers. Who cannot access the restaurant? It's customers. Right? Exactly. And then I said, they're renovating this week. So it's closed to the public. It's closed to the public. I blended the D in the T sound, but we did say it's inaccessible to who the public. Right? Right? And I said the Z sound and I stretched it out just slightly bit more, a slight bit more. Yes. And then I said, okay, bummer. There was also a cute, friend restaurant close to my office. So that's C L O S E, right? We're talking about a place. It's a little shorter. And we're using that S sound close to. Yes. In the last one, I've been meaning to try it. Let's double check to make sure it's not also closed. And sometimes closed will come by itself, too. Right? It's not always closed to something just closed or open. Right? Are you open or closed? Right? Yes. Exactly. So yeah, this is really, it was a really comprehensive role play. Lots of good stuff here. Guys, also we have other episodes for you to check out that deal with similar words. So 2564 was human or person? What's the difference? Yeah. And then there was another one, sites or sites which to use for travel English. Oh my gosh. That one. As we got further into that episode, Michelle, we realized it's actually kind of confusing. S I G H T S or S I T E S. So guys, check out those episodes. And for takeaway, Michelle, what do you think about in terms of connection? Well, yeah. I mean, in terms of connection, this is huge, these are so common. You can see here, we're trying to figure out where to go for lunch. It's just endless reasons why you might use these. But really the takeaway is remembering close to CLOS E is a soft S. And that's about distance. Whereas closed to is about access. And that's a little stretched out. And with the Z sound. Yep. And I think when it comes to connection, connection happens when you understand people kind of the first time, right? This is a listening skill. First of all, we need to know which they said so we can not break up the conversation, but continue it smoothly. And when we make the pronounce, when we pronounce this, we need to be clear. So people know exactly what we're saying. And that's the connection right there. Right? Perfect. All right. Let's talk about this today. We guys have a good day. And Lindsay, I'm feeling very close to you after talking to you for how many years? Yes. How many years, 12, 13 years, we shall all along. We calculate the number of hours we've actually talked. We could do that. We could do that. We could do that math that quick math easily. All right. Good stuff. Michelle, we'll talk to you again very soon. You have a good day. You too. Bye. Bye, guys. Bye. Thanks for listening to all ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to all ears English.com/fluencyscore. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.