Cup vs. Cap

One of the things I regret more about my English learning process is my former teachers not forcing me to pronounce words correctly. My mother tongues just having one fixed sound for each of the 5 vowels doesn't help either and I find it really hard to distinguish between some vowel sounds in English. Let's take for example the words cup and cap. Even if I try as much as I can, it seems to me that my ears are not prepared to distinguish them, and consequently, neither is my mouth. Same thing with reach vs. rich or full vs. fool. Yeah, I know that when listening I can guess which word it is due to context, but believe me, each time I need to say "I would like to go to the beach" I secretly pray for my pronounciation of beach to be: and not:


Finally, I've learned a new expression today in the Skyscrapercity forum: Pun intended. Which can be used, for example, in: "It would be cool if it snowed tomorrow" (pun intended :D ).