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| How to pronounce /i/ and /ɪ/ |
English has two front, high vowels: /i/ and /ɪ/. They are produced at the front part of the tongue. The vowel /i/ is made with the highest tongue elevation, and so the mouth is almost closed without lips touching each other. English natives call the vowel /i/ the long-E sound. It is the most frontal vowel, making it a tense vowel.
The other front, high vowel /ɪ/ is made with the front part of the tongue lowered slightly but not quite to the mid position. The mouth is slightly open. So /ɪ/ is called the mid-high front vowel. Also, the vowel is made slightly towards the central part of the mouth, making it a lax vowel.
Being able to pronounce /i/ and /ɪ/ correctly is very important since there are many pairable words that sound the same except for the vowel sounds. And some of these include swear words: bitch vs beach; piss vs peace; shit vs sheet. Non-native speakers may have experienced saying something like “I like to go to the bitch,” “I hope for world piss,” and “Where can I buy a bedshit?” The correct pronunciations are these:
I like to go to the beach
I hope for world peace
Where can I buy a bedsheet?
As stated earlier, the main distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/ is tenseness. /i/ is a tense vowel. To produce this tense /i/ sound, slightly draw the lips back and raise the back of the tongue. By contrast, /ɪ/ is a lax vowel. To produce the /ɪ/ sound, the tongue is high, but the rest of the vocal tract is relaxed. Just let the air come out from the lungs. The mouth is more open for /ɪ/. Let’s begin with words with these phonemes.
/i/ words
Several different letter combinations can make the tense /i/ sound. We categorize words with the /i/ sound by their letter combinations.
with the letters "ea":
beach, bead, beat, bleach, breathe, cheat, clean, cream, creature, deal, dream, each, eagle, easy, eat, heal, heat, increase (noun), increase (verb), jeans, leader, leaf, lean, leave, meal, mean, meat, pea, peach, peak, please, reach, read, repeat, reason, reveal, scream, sea, seal, seat, steal, steam, stream, teach, team, treat, weak
with the letters "ee":
agree, between, keep, feel, feet, fleece, free, meet, need, see, seem, street, week, apogee, bumblebee, employee, honeybee, jubilee, Lee, manatee, pedigree, refugee
with the letter "e":
even, region, theme, complete
with the letters "ie":
achieve, believe, brief, chief, field, piece
with the letter "i":
police, Luis, Clarice
with the letters "eo":
people,
/ɪ/ words
These are words with the lax, /ɪ/ sound.
with the letter "i":
begin, did, in, it, is, his, him, interest, kit, little, sit, six, Swiss, this, will, with
with the letter "y":
crystal, hymn, physics, rhythm, symbol, symmetry, symptom, typical
with the letter "u":
busy, business
with the letter "o":
women
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