So, today we’re coming back to two short vowel sounds we’ve looked at before in contrast with other vowels. We looked at /e/ way back in episode 3, in contrast with /æ/, and we looked at /ɪ/ last season, in episode 25 “cheap as chips”, in contrast with the long vowel /i:/. Today we’ll be contrasting /e/ and /ɪ/ with each other, and I should stress that we’re talking about the contrast between them in a modern RP English-from-England accent: these vowels can sound quite different in some regional and global Englishes (although there would still be a contrast between them)… as we go, see if you can tell how they sound in yours!
Let’s start with a recap of how to make the sounds. They’re both front vowels, which means that the front of your mouth is doing a lot of work. /e/ is a mid front vowel, so we need to drop our jaws a bit (not fully) to get some space in the mouth, and then we need to put our lips in that wide smile position and vibrate the vocal cords in a short burst, and hopefully you’ll get /e/. If you hear the sound slightly differently, experiment with opening or closing your jaw a few millimetres, moving your tongue around, and making sure that you are really pulling your lips back into that smile. Listen to what happens when I play around with these, and have a go yourself! /ɪ/ is more closed, and is slightly more central than /e/, so your jaw will be higher (close to its naturally relaxed position), and you’ll feel the middle of your tongue higher in your mouth. You’ll still need to have some tension in your lips, but you might not reach as wide a smile position as you do with /e/. Let’s try: /ɪ/. Again, if you don’t hear the sound in the same way, experiment with your jaw, tongue and lip position until you do! Ok, let’s see if we’ve got it by moving between the two sounds quickly: /e/, /ɪ/, /e/, /ɪ/. And the other way: /ɪ/, /e/, /ɪ/, /e/.
Right, we’re going to move on to some common words with both sounds, and then to some minimal pairs.
First we’ll recap some of the common words with /e/ from episode 3.
1. any
2. bed
3. better
4. every
5. fresh
6. letter
7. never
8. sent
9. slept
10.test
11.well
12.went
And a couple of sentences with those words:
He’d never slept better in any bed!
The letter she sent said the test went well.
And now the common words with /ɪ/ from episode 25.
1. big
2. chicken
3. finish
4. fish
5. his
6. quickly
7. river
8. this
9. ticket
10.tourist
11.trip
12.which
…And we’ll do a couple of sentences with those:
Bill bit a big bit of chicken but didn’t finish the fish.
The tourist quickly needs a ticket for his river trip.
Now for some minimal pairs with /e/ and /ɪ/. There are loads of these – we won’t do them all!
For the first 10, let’s read them both together. Listen, and repeat:
1. bed bid
2. beg big
3. bell bill
4. belt built
5. bet bit
6. bless bliss
7. check chick
8. crept crypt
9. dead did
10.deck dick
For the next 10, I’ll read the /e/ word: can you read both? We’ll do the first one as an example.
11.den din
So, you should have said “den, din”, or if you did it the other way round and said “din, den” that’s fine too!
Let’s try the rest:
12.desk disk
13.fell fill
14.gem gym
15.get git
16.head hid
17.hell hill
18.hem him
19.jest gist
20.kept kipped
And for the last 10, I’ll read the /ɪ/ word: can you read both? We’ll do the first one as an example.
21.led lid
So, you should have said “lid, led” OR you may have said “led, lid” – both are fine!
22.left lift
23.lest list
24.let lit
25.meddle middle
26.mess miss
27.messed mist
28.peg pig
29.pet pit
30.set sit
We’ll finish with a few sentences with those words.
Listen, and repeat:
They crept into the crypt and hid.
He missed the mess in the left lift.
She begged him to bid big on the big bed.
I got the gist of the jest but I missed the best bit.