#49: American English pronunciation of long i and short i sounds
Video podcast of the spelling and pronunciation of the long i and short i sounds.
Transcript
Hi everyone, and welcome to Seattle Learning Academy's 49th American English Pronunciation Podcast, and our third video podcast. My name is Mandy.
Today's show is taken from Video Lesson 3, which is available in its entirety to Pronuncian subscribers. You can find it by joining Pronuncian, logging in, and going to the materials page.
The show today is about the long i and short i sounds. We'll learn how to pronounce and spell both of these sounds, but I don't want to just compare them with each other. The short i causes so many pronuncian problems that I am going to continue the study of that sound in another video podcast in two weeks. In that show, I'll compare the short i with the short e and long e , which is where I hear the most problems. If you can't wait to hear that portion, subscribe to Pronuncian. Today's video podcast and the next video podcast are both part of the third video lesson, so, you'll get the practice before everyone else! You'll also get the MP3 minimal pairs practice and quizzes for all of these sounds. It's a good deal. Now, let's compare the long i and short i pronunciation and spelling. The long i sounds like ( long i ). If you listen very carefully to the pronunciation of this sound, you will hear a very brief y sound at the end of it.
( long i ), ( long i ).
The long a is a two-sound vowel. To create this sound, begin with your tongue in the middle of your mouth, not too low, not too high. Then the tongue moves up so that the center of the tongue is very close to the roof of your mouth, in the same position as the long e . Listen to the sound again.
( long i ), ( long i )
The key word for the long i sound is bike . Can you hear the long i sound ( long i ) in bike ?
Compare the long i ( long i ) with the sound of the short i ( short i ).
The key word for the short i is sit. Can you hear the short i sound ( short i ) in sit ?
The short i sound is a sound that requires only a slight movement in the vocal tract. Then the blade of your tongue should be in the middle to high area inside your mouth. It will be higher than the short e , but much lower than the long e . Your lips should remain relaxed during this sound. Listen to the sound again.
( short i , short i
I'm going to say some minimal pairs for the long i and short i sound. The only difference in these words is the vowel sound. I'll say the word with the long i first, then the short i . With these two sounds, the long i does take more time to say than the short i . That is not true of all pairs between long and short vowels, but it is with these, as well as the long and short e sound. The word with the long i should take slightly more time to say than the word with the short i .
file, fill mice, miss fight, fit night, knit
These examples show two different spellings for the long i sound, and one spelling for the short i sound. There are two more spellings for the long i sound, ie, and the -y ending .
The first word was file, f-i-l-e. The word file demonstrates one of the standard long vowel spelling rules: the vowel-consonant-e rule.
The vowel-consonant-e rule says that when a single vowel is followed by a single consonant, and then the letter e , the first vowel is said as a long vowel. The letter e in the vowel-consonant-e rule is silent.
Our key word for long i is bike , b-i-k-e, the i is said as a long i , and the e is silent, bike . I do not say bike-uh . I don't need to make any sound at all for the e at the end of the word. The only job of that e is to make sure I know that the i is long.
Here are some more examples of the vowel-consonant-e rule for the long i spelling
hide, h-i-d-e, the i is said as a long i , and the e is silent mice, m-i-c-e, the i is said as a long i , and the e is silent stripe, s-t-r-i-p-e, the i is said as a long i , and the e is silent
The vowel-consonant-e rule works for all the long vowel sounds, although it is rarely used for the long e sound.
The second long i spelling is much less common that the first; it is the -igh spelling. The letters gh can make vowel sounds do strange things, and lesson 1 showed that the eigh spelling is often pronounced with a long a . Take the e off, and we have -igh , and we change the pronunciation to a long i
Here are some more examples of words with the long i sound because of the igh spelling:
night n-i-g-h-t bright b-r-i-g-h-t light l-i-g-h-t sight s-i-g-h-t
If you've been noticing that these words all end in a t , you're right, the igh spelling for the long i sound is usually followed by the letter t . It is possible to not have any letter after the igh, also, as in the words:
high h-i-g-h thigh t-h-i-g-h sigh, sigh
The third common spelling for the long i sound is the -y ending. The -y ending can also be pronounced with the long e sound, so be careful with it.
Let's look at some words that end in the letter y and the long i sound: why, w-h-y fly f-l-y apply, a-p-p-l-y satisfy s-a-t-i-s-f-y
Let's review the three most common spellings for the long i sound. Let's review. a-consonant-e: bike igh: night -y ending: fly
All of those spellings sound exactly the same, long i ( long i ).
The short i sound also has only one rule to remember for the short a sound, the consonant-vowel-consonant , or CVC rule. It says that when a single vowel is between two consonants, it is said as a short vowel sound. This rule is also true if the word begins with a single vowel, followed by a consonant. Don't forget, if the second consonant is followed by an e, the vowel-consonant-e rule takes over! Listen for the short i sound ( short i ) in each of those words. All of these words follow the CVC rule.
it, i-t will, w-i-l-l gift g-i-f-t dinner, d-i-n-n-e-r listen l-i-s-t-e-n
There you go everyone. If you want to see the entire lesson and have access to online exercises and quizzes that accompany this video, go to www.proununcian.com/join. This has been a Seattle Learning Academy digital publication.
Seattle Learning Academy is where the world comes to learn.
Bye-bye.
