美语发音EE和I

Session Eight

1. American English Vowels

2. Vowel EE

3. Vowel I

Hi, and welcome back. Again my name is Paul Gruber and this is the

Pronunciation W

orkshops---Eighth Training Session. Today, we will begin

to work on Vowel Sounds. I know that vowel sounds are often difficult for

non-native

speakers.

One

reason

is

that

there

are

five

vowel

letters

in

English: A E I O and U. But there are around 15 vowel sounds and some

vowels have as many as 10 different spellings. So that’

s why it is so difficult.

When some one learns English as a second language what they often do is

substitute vowel sounds from their first language into their newly learned

English. And when these vowel sounds are spoken incorrectly, it may often

cause you to be misunderstood.

That’

s

why I need next few sessions.

I’ll

be

teaching you the correct way to pronounce American English Vowels.

Now, vowel sounds are made by slightly changing the Size, Shape and

the

Tension

of the

muscles in

your

mouth,

your tongue

and

your

lips.

A

small change can produce an entirely different sound. Instead of giving you

diagrams of tongue placement---how round your lips should be or how far

you

should

open

your

mouth.

I

believe

the

best

way

to

learn

American

vowels is by Ear Training. Ear Training is learning vowel sounds just by

listening and then reproducing them on your own.

To help teach you the

American vowel sounds,

I’ll

separate them to

two groups: front vowels and back vowels. When your tongue rises up in

the front,

it’

s

a front vowel. When your tongue rises

up in the back,

it’

s

a

back vowel.

Let’

s

start by going over the basic front and back vowel sounds.

My goal right now is to just have you hear the sounds. Y

ou do not need to

memorize this.

First,

front

vowels.

Listen

carefully.

Don’t

repeat.

Just listen.

These

sounds move from what I call high to low. Here we go.

EE

I

AE

EH

A

Notice with each of these vowels. My jaw is opening a little bit more

and more.

Let’

s

do it again. Listen carefully. EE, i (which is a difficult one

for many people) i, AE, EH, A. Now, this time

I’d

like you to repeat. EE, i,

AE, EH, A. EE, i, AE, EH, A. Now, I put them in word forms to make it a

little bit easier. Repeat after me.

EE as in Heat

i as in Hit

AE as in Hate

EH as in Het (which is a nonsense word)

And A as in Hat

Heat, Hit, Hate, Het, Hat, Heat, Hit, Hate, Het, Hat.

Ok. Now

let’

s

do back vowels. Again, vowel sounds move from high

to low. Here we go.

OO

Uh

Oh

Aw

Ah

Again.

and

notice

how

my

jaw

is

opening

on

each

one

and

also

notice how my lips are coming forward all the way on the OO sound. Y

ou

see? That OO. OO, Uh, Oh, Aw, Ah. Ok now repeat with me. OO, Uh, Oh,

Aw, Ah, OO, Uh, Oh, Aw, Ah. Let’ s put these sounds into word forms.

OO as in Boot

Uh as in Book

Oh as in Boat

Aw as in Bought

Ah as in Bot (which is a nonsense word)

Boot, Book, Boat, Bought, Bot. Again . Boot, Book, Boat, Bought, Bot.

Boo_, Boo_, Boa_, Bough_, Bo_.

Very

good.

Now,

let’

s

go

back

a

little

bit

to

front

vowels.

I’d

like

to

address the EE sound in the word Heat and the i sound as in the word Hit.

Most of the foreign speakers that I work with make many errors with these

two sounds. And many times

they’re

switched when the word should have

an EE. It’

s

pronounced

as an i. When it should have an i. It’

s

pronounced

as an EE. Think of the sound EE as in Heat as being high up and i as in Hit.

It’

s

being a little bit lower. One hint that I would give you is when you’ re

practising

raise

your

eyebrows

with

EE

words,

like

this

Heat,

and

then

lower your eyebrows and don’

t smile so much with i words, like H

it, Heat,

Hit,

like

that.

I

put

together

some

paired

words

with

these

two

sounds.

Listen, compare the vowel sounds and then repeat them back. Here we go.

Heat

–

Hit

Keen

–

Kin

Deal

–

Dill

Seek

–

Sick

Seen

–

Sin

Reap

–

Rip

Teal

–

Till

Bean

–

Been

(Bean

is

high.

I

ate

a

bean.

Been

is

low.

I

have

been

here.)

Let’

s

talk

about

these

last

two

words.

Bean

and

Been.

Most

of the

time in English when a word is spelled with double E, i

t’

s pronounced as

EE like in the word FEED or SEEN or TEEN with the double E. However,

in English, here is an exception. The word BEAN spelled B-E-A-N, which