How to Pronounce EE vs. IH leave vs. live American English
In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to compare the vowels EE and IH,
as in ‘seat’ and ‘sit’.
A good place to start when comparing sounds
is to take a look at pictures.
Here’s a profile comparison of the two sounds.
The sound on the left is the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’
vowel, and the sound on the right the ‘ih’
as in ‘sit’. Right away you can notice there’s
a little bit more tension in the corner of the
mouth for the ‘ee’ vowel. That’s because the
corners of the lips pull back a little bit.
The mouth position is more relaxed, more neutral
for the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. Now with the
parts of the mouth drawn in: roof of the mouth,
soft palate, throat, teeth, and finally, in
the darkest red, the tongue. The tongue positions
are clearly very similar. In the ‘ee’ vowel,
however, the tongue does lift even more towards
the roof of the mouth. It’s just a little
bit more relaxed in the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel.
One thing that can help students to relax
their tongue a little bit more is to think
of keeping the front part very wide. Sometimes
that helps them to get a better ‘ih’ as in
‘sit’ vowel. Also, it is hard to tell here,
but the jaw does drop a little bit more for
the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel.
So you can see that for ‘ih’, the jaw drops
a little bit more. If you’re not sure what
else to do, just try that. Ih, ih. For the
‘ee’ sound, the tongue stretches up more,
ee, ee, ee, about here, towards the roof of
the mouth. Also, the corners of the lips may
pull wide, ee, ee. Even if you can’t hear
the difference, play around with this adjustment,
moving back and forth. Solidify for yourself
the physical differences in these two sounds.
And now some minimal pairs. It, eat.
Rich, reach.
Living, leaving.
Fist, feast.
Ship, sheep.
Tick, teak.
Lip, leap.
Snicker, sneaker.
Good luck as you solidify for yourself the
difference between these two vowel sounds.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.
I’m excited to announce that I’m running another
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Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life
English videos. Or get more comfortable with
the IPA in this play list. Learn about the
online courses I offer, or check out my latest
video.