Hey, can you go close the thigh? Oh, I mean the…breast? Nope…the door…that’s it…the door!
How could we get these words so mixed up? Let us just tell you that they have the exact same consonants and vowels. And if they have the exact same consonants and vowels then they are the same word that has several different meanings…right?
Here, give it a shot and see if you can tell the difference:
Keep at it!
If a dense, confirmed monolingual like myself can learn to hear the tones of Mandarin (and some Cantonese), you can do it too. I can pick them out like a champ now. Even aced a "tone quiz" I took recently. 😉