In my dialect (very close to General American, I've moved a lot) the following pairs are very distinct:
- /i/ and /ji/ (ear and year)
- /o/ and /wo/ (oak and woke)
- /u/ and /wu/ (ooh and woo)
- /ʌ/ and /wʌ/ (un- and won)
I would never confuse these in normal conversation, even if I wasn't paying much attention. If the area was noisy I might have trouble distinguishing /i/ from /ji/, but the same could be said for many sounds (/p/ and /b/ or /ɛ/ and /ə/) which are also considered to be distinct.
Answer from Charles on Stack ExchangeIn my dialect (very close to General American, I've moved a lot) the following pairs are very distinct:
- /i/ and /ji/ (ear and year)
- /o/ and /wo/ (oak and woke)
- /u/ and /wu/ (ooh and woo)
- /ʌ/ and /wʌ/ (un- and won)
I would never confuse these in normal conversation, even if I wasn't paying much attention. If the area was noisy I might have trouble distinguishing /i/ from /ji/, but the same could be said for many sounds (/p/ and /b/ or /ɛ/ and /ə/) which are also considered to be distinct.
As a native American English speaker, I can definitely hear the difference between /o/~/wo/, /u/~/wu/, etc. I think most native English speakers can.
As for learning to distinguish them better, looking at the speaker's mouth while they talk may help. The lips are closer together and more rounded for /w/ than for /o/ and /u/, so when a person pronounces /wo/ and /wu/ you should see their lips begin close together and very rounded, then separate somewhat. Paying attention to the visual difference could help you pick up on the auditory difference. (This should also be easier to do with /wo/ than /wu/, since /w/ is more acoustically similar to /u/ than to /o/).
Videos
Most native speakers can hear the distinction. Like Peter Shor said, saying "an ear" and "a year" can help the listener understand which one you mean. Words beginning with vowel sounds always use "an", but words starting with consonants ("y" is a consonant here) use "a".
Some examples of "ear" and "year". All I can say is that "year" begins with a harder, tighter "y" sound, while "ear" has a relaxed, smooth "e" sound.
The huge majority of Americans do both make and hear a difference in the sound of the words "ear" and "year." That fact that you do not hear that difference merely means that one of the sounds does not exist in your native language. My daughter-in-law's native language is Cantonese. I cannot distinguish all six tones; my ear was not trained from a young age to register differences in tone.
I assure you that if you say
The girl is six ears old
Americans will understand you, but they will also immediately identify you as a non-native speaker.
Every site I look this up, the people there say there’s a distinctive difference in the pronunciation between these two words, but I could never hear it. I’ve never been confused which one people are saying though when they’re surrounded by context. I speak both of these words the exact same way.