To a native English speaker, those pronunciations are very different. With batter and butter the second syllables with the "er" endings are the same but the accented short vowel sound of "a" in batter and "u" in butter are distinct in each emphasis. Batter with the short "a"... "baa" sound, like the sound of sheep. Butter with the short "u" sound like the word "up." Ship has a short "i" vowel sound like the word "it." Shape has a long "a" vowel sound and, as such, the "ape" in Shape is pronounced "ape."

Batter sounds like "BAAAAAAAhhhhh-t-er". Try showing your top teeth to make the "AAAhhh"-sound. Like in the word "AT". Butter sounds like "BAAAAAwwwww-ter". You don"t show your top teeth for this sound. Like in the word "Ugly" Ship rhymes with hip, trip, grip, nip. "Shhhh-i-P". It helps to emphasize the "p" sound at the end. The word "shape" sounds like "shhhhh-A-p". The A sound is emphasized. Rhymes with tape, grape, sake, make. You'll get the sound right with practice!

Hi Steve, Yes, both pair of words are pronounced differently. In general, it may help you, looking at the wiktionary. There you will find both, the phonetic transcription as well as recordings of the word being pronounced. I would suggest you get acquainted with IPA, as it is the phonetic transcription used in the other languages you learn. ship: /ʃɪp/ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ship#English) shape: /ʃeɪp/ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shape#Pronunciation) Saludos, Antonio Osorio

Batter - B-AH-ter Butter- B-UH-Ter The difference between those 2 words is the second letter, The A from batter is pronouned "Ah". The U from Butter is prounounced "Uh" for Butter. Ship- SH-Eh-P Shape- SH-AY-P Ship prounounces different from shape because in the word "shape" word you can hear the A being extenuated.

butter. bus. bud. batter. pass. bad. Different sounds.