American English IH Vowel How to make the IH Vowel
In this American English pronunciation
video, we’re going to go over how to
pronounce the IH as in SIT vowel.
This vowel can be a challenge for non-
native speakers. The tendency is to
replace it with the EE vowel. But for
the IH vowel, the jaw drops more, so the
tongue isn’t as close to the roof of the
mouth. Let’s study the mouth position.
There’s a relaxed jaw drop. The tip of
the tongue stays forward, lightly
touching the back of the bottom front
teeth. The top, front part of the tongue
arches up towards the roof of the
mouth.
Let’s see this vowel up close and in slow motion.
Relaxed jaw drop. Tongue tip forward.
Top, front part of the tongue arches up
towards the roof of the mouth. This
vowel is stressed in the word ‘fix’.
Same mouth position.
When this vowel is in a stressed word
or syllable, like ‘fix’, it has an up-down
shape, IH, fix, IH. When it’s in an
unstressed syllable, it will be flatter and
lower in pitch, quieter: ih, ih. It’s
unstressed in the word ‘office’, ih.
Let’s take a look.
The mouth position is the same, but a
little more relaxed.
Let’s compare the stressed IH in ‘fix’, on
the top, to the unstressed IH in ‘office’.
Notice that the jaw is more dropped for
the stressed syllable. For the
unstressed IH, the jaw is less dropped.
This is typical. Unstressed vowels are
shorter, so there isn’t as much time to
make the full mouth position.
Stressed IH: fix, IH
Unstressed IH: office, ih
IH, ih, IH, ih
Example words. Repeat with me:
Which, instead, begin, divorce, busy, print.