Elision - Lik(ed) to

1) I like to watch movies.
2) I liked to watch movies.

I cannot pronounce those two differently. Both are like 1), so the past tense is impossible to hear. Is that normal? I need advice on that, thanks.

My advice is to not even use #2. It sounds awkward, and in most situations I wouldn't convey this message without providing further context.

Instead of using the infinitive form "to watch", use the present participle:

"I liked watching movies with my mother, until she developed this annoying habit of talking throughout the entire movie.

or

"I used to like watching movies, until I discovered more exciting forms of entertainment.

My advice is to not even use #2. It sounds awkward, and in most situations I wouldn't convey this message without providing further context.

Instead of using the infinitive form "to watch", use the present participle:

"I liked watching movies with my mother, until she developed this annoying habit of talking throughout the entire movie.

or

"I used to like watching movies, until I discovered more exciting forms of entertainment.

The point in not the message or the grammar, it's just pronunciation.

Like to = Liked to
Watch two = Watched two
Etc.

I wondered if it was normal to not be able to distinguish them.

Yes they are very similar in pronunciation and often hard to tell apart from each other, but for those words that have past tense verbs, I think the t's are held a little bit longer.

The issue isn't the length. The issue is that they should be separate words. It's "liked", then a pause, then "to". Not "liketo".

Do have audio of you or someone with similar pronunciation saying these words?

<<1) I like to watch movies.
2) I liked to watch movies.
>>

The difference when spoken is stress: "liked" is stressed more heavily than "like", with a slight pause after "liked".

Otherwise, context determines which is which. Theorhetically, this may seem like an ambiguity problem, but in practice it never or rarely occurs.

<<The difference when spoken is stress: "liked" is stressed more heavily than "like", with a slight pause after "liked".
Otherwise, context determines which is which. Theorhetically, this may seem like an ambiguity problem, but in practice it never or rarely occurs.>>

Yeah, that must be it. A slightly longer pause compared to "like to" and context. Thanks.

I just tried it both ways out loud, and you aren't always going to be able to tell, except from context. I didn't make any artificial pause between liked and to to help differentiate it from like to, and I imagine it's pretty common not to. There are plenty of times when you would use the past tense -- I liked to watch movies when I was a kid -- so you can't just studiously avoid the wording. As other's have mentioned, it's rarely an issue on a practical level, because there will probably be other clues as to the tense being used.