Diphthong /aɪ/

 

/aɪ/

/aɪ/ words

The diphthong /aɪ/ can be found in these words: 

 with “ie”: 

lie, pie, tie 

 with “i”: 

bind, blind, child, climb, bike, drive, file, fine, ice, item, smile, strike, time, title, while, white, wide, fight, flight, fright

 with “igh”: 

height, high, light, might

 with “y”: 

apply, cycle, deny, July, rye, shy, sky, style

 

/aɪər/ words

/aɪ/ in combination with /r/ is an r-colored vowel, that is pronounced /aɪər/. 

acquire, choir, desire, entire, fire, hire, inspire, Ireland, iron, require, retire, umpire, wire

Exceptions:

In the following words, the /r/ does not make the preceding vowel an r-colored vowel: 

gyrate, irate, pirate, spiral, virus

That is, you don’t say ‘gyer.ate’ or ‘pir.ate’, but ‘gy.rate’ and ‘pi.rate’.

/aɪ/ homophones

These are /aɪ/ homophones:

aisle - I'll - isle 

bite - byte 

buy - by

cite - site - sight 

die - dye

fined - find 

high - hi

I - eye

knight - night 

mined - mind 

right - rite - write 

sighed - side 

sighs - size

sight - site

time - thyme 

whine - wine 

why - Y

 

These are words that can be pronounced in a few different ways:

‘Either’ and ‘neither’ can be pronounced as /ˈaɪðər, ˈiːðər/, /ˈnaɪðər, ˈniːðər/.

‘Fragile’ is pronounced as /ˈfrædʒaɪl/ in England, but /frædʒəl/ in America. 

‘Geyser’ is pronounced as /ɡiːzər/ in England, but /ɡaɪzər/ in America.