English Pronunciation: Vowel Sounds: /Ɛ/ “Short E Sound” (Not Really). FREE BONUS PDF.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ต.ค. 2024
- Here are the links and resources referenced in today’s video:
Free Bonus PDF with LOTS of practice words: drive.google.c...
Vowel Sound Masterclass: • Perfect Your English A...
Consonant Masterclass: • How To Perfectly Prono...
The /Ɛ/ vowel sound in English is not present in all languages. Spanish does not have it. German doesn’t have it. It is my understanding that some dialects of Japanese, Mandarin and Arabic do not have it. Many Indian languages do not have it. So, I thought this would be a good vowel sound to focus on!
Today, we will do 4 things:
1) learn a 4-step process to produce a perfect /Ɛ/
2) Understand length variations in the vowel sound
3) and 4) Take 2 challenges to practice discriminating between the /Ɛ/ and other vowel sounds to build a strong mental model.
And as I always do for my sound-related videos, I have created a free bonus PDF for you with a list of words that have the /Ɛ/ sound in them. So you can keep practicing! But make sure you watch this entire video first, because then, you will get the most out of the free PDF.
If you watched my vowel Masterclass video, you know that a vowel is characterized by 4 elements. The 4 elements that characterize vowel production are:
1) Tongue height
2) Tongue advancement
3) Tension/Length
4) Lip Rounding: retracted, neutral, rounded or inverted
The /Ɛ/ sound is a mid, front, lax and unrounded sound.
Follow these 4 steps to make the /eh/ sound:
Step 1: Drop your jaw
Step 2: Tongue tip behind bottom front teeth
Step 3: body of tongue arches up toward the roof of your mouth
Step 4: Back of the tongue stretches out sideways (you should feel the sides along the back of your tongue touching the bak molars.
This sound is sometimes called the short E sound. This is misleading. While Ɛ is a short sound, it is not merely a shorter version of the “long E sound”. It is qualitatively a different sound. It differs in tension, and in tongue position. And similar to the /ɪ/ sound, the / Ɛ/ sound also changes in length depending on what comes after. We use a longer / Ɛ/ sound when the / Ɛ/ is in a stressed syllable, and is followed by a voiced consonant. We talked about voiced and unvoiced consonants in my Consonant master class video: • How To Perfectly Prono...
Here are some minimal pairs. In the first word in each pair, the / Ɛ/ is followed by an unvoiced consonant, and in the 2nd word, the /ɪ/ is followed by a voiced consonant. Pay attention to how we lengthen the vowel when it comes before a voiced consonant.
-Wet wed
Peck peg
Bet beg
The video contains 2 challenges to help you build a strong auditory model of the /Ɛ/ sound. I hope you were not only able to hear the /ɪ/ more easily and consistently, but, you were also able to produce correctly!
Now, you are ready for the free PDF!! In it, I have a lot of 1, 2, and 3-syllable words for you to practice. For multi-syllabic words, the vowel that makes the / Ɛ/ sound will be indicated in red.
There are quite a few words in which either the /Ɛ/ or the /uh/ or the /ɪ/ sound can be used. For example: En-ter-tain-ment: in the 4th syllable, ment, you can use the shwa,/uh/ or the /ɪ/ sounds. They will each sound ever so slightly different, but no one will be confused regardless of what sound you use. Because it is unstressed syllable in a 4 syllable word, and there is enough information in the rest of the word for people to know exactly what is said.
As always If you found this video interesting and helpful, please make sure you like, comment, and subscribe!
Here are the links and resources referenced in today’s video:
🔴Vowel Sound Masterclass: • Perfect Your English A...
🔴 Consonant Masterclass: • How To Perfectly Prono...
🔴 Free Bonus PDF with LOTS of practice words: /Ɛ/ Vowel Practice Words.pdf
🔴Watch the rest of the videos in my ACCENT series:
Here is why we all have an accent: bit.ly/46aSYxU
Consonant Masterclass: • How To Perfectly Prono...
The Letter C: 3 Sounds, 6 Rules: • Master English Pronunc...
Boost your English Proficiency: When to aspirate the /p/, /t/ , and /k/ - sounds: • English Pronunciation:...
Word Stress Patterns in English: • English Fluency: 6 Gui...
The Rhythm of the English Language: • English Fluency: Rhyth...
When the /t/ gets swallowed: • English Fluency: T pro...
The Flap sound in American English: • American Accent: The F...
English Intonation Rules: • English Intonation: Cr...
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Here are the links and resources referenced in today’s video:
🔴Vowel Sound Masterclass: th-cam.com/video/IU-0oCNS5Pg/w-d-xo.html
🔴 Consonant Masterclass: th-cam.com/video/Gtn6wXHC4zk/w-d-xo.html
🔴 Free Bonus PDF with LOTS of practice words: drive.google.com/file/d/1w4oexGrTeXKxU9aVdGm3BeBnHa5FwwCu/view?usp=drive_link
Great. Improving my listening here with you.
I'm glad to hear that!thank you for watching!! 🙏
One thing that most phoneticians strangely fail to recognize is that 'ebb' and 'egg' do not rhyme. 'Bed' and 'beg' do not rhyme. This is because the tongue movement required to put the tongue in position for either the Engma or the Hard G involuntarily squeezes the /ε/ into an /i/, thus 'egg' or 'beg' rhyme with 'bait' more than 'bet'.
Your comments are always so insightful! They give me so much food for thought!!🙏🙏🙏
@@Bakul-Soman Thanks.🙂 I think it comes from my self-taught DIY approach to learning about phonetics.
❤😅
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