How to Pronounce the Letter E American English
In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to take a look at how this letter
is pronounced.
I often get emails from people asking questions
like, ‘Why is the CH in CHICAGO pronounced
differently than the CH in CHOICE?’ SH vs.
CH. And my answer is always, unfortunately,
the sounds of American English do not correspond
one-to-one with the letters of the alphabet.
To know for sure how a word is pronounced,
you need to either hear a native speaker say
the word, or look up the word in a dictionary
that has the International Phonetic Alphabet
transcription.
Let’s take a look at the letter E. In the
word ‘shed’, it is the EH, EH vowel. In the
word ‘be’, it is the ee, ee vowel. In the
word ‘pretty’, it’s the IH vowel, IH, pretty.
In the word ‘anthem’, it is the schwa, uh,
uh, anthem. In the word ‘sergeant’, it’s the
AH vowel. Sah, sergeant. In the word ‘cafe’,
it is the AY diphthong. Cafe.
So when you see this letter in a word, you
can’t make assumptions about how it is pronounced.
Look it up in a dictionary, or have native
speaker say the word to you.
That’s it, and thanks so much
for using Rachel’s English.
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.