You say "I live on this es-TREET," or "I go to su-KOOL," and your listener has to work to find the word. Or you try to say every sound in "texts" and "months" and get stuck. A consonant cluster is two or more consonant sounds together with no vowel between them, like STR in "street." Many languages do not allow these groups, so learners add a small vowel before or inside them. In this episode: • Clusters at the start: no extra vowel • Clusters at the end: no extra vowel either • How americans simplify hard endings • Clusters across two words • Listening lab: a saturday text • Practice • Self-check questions with answers Key phrases from this episode: street (STREET) — our street school (SKOOL) — after school small (SMAWL) — a small kitchen snack (SNAK) — an after-school snack spoon (SPOON) — a spoon stairs (STAIRZ) — Take your shoes up the stairs. stove (STOHV) — Turn off the stove. spring (SPRING) — in the spring screen (SKREEN) — the phone screen scrub (SKRUB) — Scrub the pan. splash (SPLASH) — Don't splash water on the floor. breakfast (BREK-fust) — What's for breakfast? desk (DESK) — my desk lamp (LAMP) — the lamp milk (MILK) — a glass of milk help (HELP) — I need help. fixed (FIKST) — He fixed it. asked (ASKT) — I asked Mom. next (NEKST) — next week sixth (SIKSTH) — the sixth floor texts (TEKS or TEKSTS) — I sent you two texts. months (MUNTS or MUNTHS) — six months clothes (KLOHZ) — Put your clothes away. It sounds just like "close." desks (DESKS, often DESS) — the kids' desks tests (TESTS, often TESS) — two tests this week lists (LISTS, often LISS) — shopping lists Season 2 · Real American English: the complete spoken course for learners worldwide — accent, everyday grammar, prepositions, articles, phrasal verbs, idioms, slang and real conversations at home. Listen, repeat out loud, then take the 52-question quiz. Audio voiced with AI from an original script by Dr. Rashmi R Nair.