WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.439 Why does the letter E sound different in B, bed, 00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:07.740 and her? It's the same letter, but English doesn't 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.480 treat it that way. Welcome back to the Learn 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:12.519 English Podcast, the podcast teaching English 00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:15.800 in context so you can learn naturally. We have 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:19.820 discussed the A vowel sound before, and on today's 00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:23.039 episode, it is time for one of the most confusing 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:26.859 vowels, the E vowel sound. The letter E might 00:00:26.859 --> 00:00:29.920 be small. but it creates some of the biggest 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:33.340 pronunciation problems in English. On today's 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:35.700 episode, we are going to discuss the sounds the 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:37.979 letter E can make in different words and how 00:00:37.979 --> 00:00:40.679 you can recognize those sounds when a native 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:43.799 speaker says them to you. If English pronunciation 00:00:43.799 --> 00:00:47.600 has ever seemed inconsistent or confusing, this 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:51.320 episode is going to help. So with that, let's 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:59.060 begin. The first thing you need to know is that 00:00:59.060 --> 00:01:02.859 English does not organize its vowel sounds by 00:01:02.859 --> 00:01:06.719 letter. Instead, it organizes by sound. That's 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:09.359 why the same letter can have completely different 00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:13.040 sounds in different words. Native speakers hear 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:16.420 the sound first before they think about how the 00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:19.140 word is actually spelled. So instead of trying 00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:21.739 to memorize a bunch of rules, We're going to 00:01:21.739 --> 00:01:24.819 try to focus on training your ear to hear these 00:01:24.819 --> 00:01:27.980 sounds so you can reduce your accent. Let's start 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:31.140 with the first vowel sound. That is the short 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:34.040 E. I mentioned this on the A vowel sound episode, 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:38.420 but every vowel has a short and long sound. The 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:42.560 short sound is relaxed, short, and open. You'll 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:47.409 hear it in words like bed, red, and head. Listen 00:01:47.409 --> 00:01:50.549 again to how I am pronouncing the E in those 00:01:50.549 --> 00:01:56.769 words. Bed, red, head. Now listen to this practice 00:01:56.769 --> 00:02:00.530 sentence. And after you listen to it, also try 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:03.930 to pronounce it yourself. I left the red pen 00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:08.009 on the desk. One more time. I left the red pen 00:02:08.009 --> 00:02:12.430 on the desk. Now it's time for the long E vowel 00:02:12.430 --> 00:02:16.960 sound. Every long vowel sound sounds like how 00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:21.520 the letter is pronounced. So the letter E has 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.639 that E sound, which means that the long vowel 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:27.800 sound is going to be pronounced like the letter 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:34.039 E. You hear this sound in words like B, C, and 00:02:34.039 --> 00:02:38.650 NE. This sound is called the long vowel sound 00:02:38.650 --> 00:02:42.330 because it takes longer to pronounce. You actually 00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:44.990 spend more time when you are pronouncing it. 00:02:45.110 --> 00:02:48.289 And your jaw is actually tighter and a little 00:02:48.289 --> 00:02:51.789 bit more closed when you pronounce it. If you're 00:02:51.789 --> 00:02:54.349 watching on YouTube, you can see my jaw when 00:02:54.349 --> 00:03:00.479 I say red. My jaw opens when I say B. My jaw 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:03.240 is a lot more closed. And so that's what you 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:06.139 want to do when you are trying to pronounce this 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:09.580 vowel sound. The easiest way to spot this vowel 00:03:09.580 --> 00:03:13.199 sound in a word is when you have two E's together. 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:17.080 However, like all vowel sounds, it can occur 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:19.379 with different spellings, so you really want 00:03:19.379 --> 00:03:22.759 to try to train your ear. Let's do a practice 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:27.710 sentence here. We need to see the key. How many 00:03:27.710 --> 00:03:30.509 long e vowel sounds did we have in that sentence? 00:03:30.990 --> 00:03:35.330 Listen to it one more time. We need to see the 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:40.169 key. We had three long e vowel sounds. So again, 00:03:40.270 --> 00:03:43.729 try to repeat that sentence and see if you can 00:03:43.729 --> 00:03:47.330 correctly make this sound. The third vowel sound 00:03:47.330 --> 00:03:50.729 is the schwa sound. If you listened to that a 00:03:50.729 --> 00:03:53.349 vowel sound episode, then you are familiar with 00:03:53.349 --> 00:03:56.979 this sound. This sound. is actually the most 00:03:56.979 --> 00:04:00.400 common vowel sound in all of english and the 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:03.740 reason is is that every vowel can make this sound 00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:07.840 instead of sounding like the letter or some variation 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:11.319 of that the schwa sound sounds more like an uh 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:15.500 sound more like a u sound and you hear it in 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:18.800 an unstressed syllable an unstressed syllable 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:22.939 is the syllable from a word that is pronounced 00:04:22.939 --> 00:04:27.180 less forcefully. You don't pronounce it as clearly 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:30.800 and as forcefully and with as much time as you 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:34.279 do with a stressed syllable. The most common 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:38.279 example of the E letter making this schwa sound 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:43.459 is with the article the. The book. The cat. The 00:04:43.459 --> 00:04:48.029 dog. The man. Did you hear that uh sound right 00:04:48.029 --> 00:04:50.930 before each of those words? When you take the 00:04:50.930 --> 00:04:54.569 article the and you put it before a word that 00:04:54.569 --> 00:04:58.649 starts with a non -vowel sound, you turn it into 00:04:58.649 --> 00:05:03.389 a schwa sound. So the book, not the book. You're 00:05:03.389 --> 00:05:05.889 never going to hear an American say the book, 00:05:06.069 --> 00:05:09.910 the cat, the dog, the man. That's very unnatural 00:05:09.910 --> 00:05:14.279 for us. Instead, we say the. Now let's do some 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:17.839 examples where that E schwa sound comes at the 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:20.519 beginning of a word. An example here would be 00:05:20.519 --> 00:05:27.500 elephant. Another example, enemy. Enemy. Both 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:30.019 of those start with E's, but that sound is more 00:05:30.019 --> 00:05:32.800 of an A sound at the beginning of the word because 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:36.379 it is a non -stressed syllable. Let's look at 00:05:36.379 --> 00:05:38.639 some examples with this sound in the middle of 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:43.540 the word. Algebra. Telephone. Did you hear that 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.779 uh sound in the middle? I know these are similar 00:05:46.779 --> 00:05:50.220 words to what is in Spanish. They're cognates 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:52.980 of Spanish words. Maybe they're cognates in other 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:55.740 languages as well. I only know Spanish, so I 00:05:55.740 --> 00:05:59.240 can only comment on that. But if you are a Spanish 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:02.279 speaker, really listen to the difference. It 00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:06.980 is algebra, algebra, that uh sound. Same thing 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:10.399 with telephone. It's telephone. Practice that 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:13.459 and see if you can get that. Because that vowel 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:16.199 shift is really something you need if you want 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:19.079 to improve your accent. Now let's do one practice 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:21.839 sentence here. And again, see if you can hear 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:25.100 the number of times the schwa sound appears in 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:29.040 this sentence. The system has a problem with 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.680 that item. How many schwa sounds were there? 00:06:32.439 --> 00:06:36.939 You should have heard four. The, system, problem, 00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:41.470 item. All of them have that schwa sound. Fourth 00:06:41.470 --> 00:06:45.089 vowel sound is the r -controlled e. This is when 00:06:45.089 --> 00:06:48.029 you have the letter e followed by the letter 00:06:48.029 --> 00:06:51.509 r and these two letters work together to make 00:06:51.509 --> 00:06:55.129 one sound. You can hear this vowel sound in words 00:06:55.129 --> 00:07:00.990 like her, term, and person. It's that r sound 00:07:00.990 --> 00:07:03.899 that you hear in those words. When you make this 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:06.759 vowel sound, you want to close your jaw and you 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:09.339 also want to narrow your lips. Again, if you're 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:12.040 watching, you can see it better when I make this 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:16.740 R sound. My jaw is pretty closed. My lips are 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:19.139 close together and they're kind of pushed out 00:07:19.139 --> 00:07:23.100 when I'm making this sound. R. Let's do our practice 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:27.139 sentence here. Her first term in college was 00:07:27.139 --> 00:07:30.680 successful. Try saying that sentence and see 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:35.209 if you can master that R. And our last vowel 00:07:35.209 --> 00:07:40.050 sound is the reduced E, which sounds like an 00:07:40.050 --> 00:07:43.850 I. In some English words, the letter E is actually 00:07:43.850 --> 00:07:47.589 pronounced like a short I sound. And confusingly, 00:07:47.589 --> 00:07:52.449 this also occurs when it is in the unstressed 00:07:52.449 --> 00:07:54.910 syllable. So sometimes you get a schwa sound 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:59.310 and sometimes you get this reduced E sound. Listen 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:02.089 to these words and see if you can hear the I 00:08:02.089 --> 00:08:10.310 sound. Benefit. Element. Pretty. All of those 00:08:10.310 --> 00:08:15.750 have this reduced E sound. Benefit only has one 00:08:15.750 --> 00:08:20.350 I, but if you listen closely, that second E is 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:25.629 pronounced very similarly to the ending I. Benefit. 00:08:25.829 --> 00:08:30.379 Same thing with element. It has only E's in it, 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:33.120 but do you hear the difference between that first 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:39.320 E and the other two E's? Element. Element. That 00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:43.259 last syllable almost sounds like mint, M -I -N 00:08:43.259 --> 00:08:49.259 -T, even though it's spelled M -E -N -T. Element. 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:55.759 And the last word, pretty. Pretty. I sound right 00:08:55.759 --> 00:09:00.649 before the T part. Pretty. Let's try our practice 00:09:00.649 --> 00:09:03.549 sentence and see how many you hear. The women 00:09:03.549 --> 00:09:06.669 discussed the business plan while eating chicken. 00:09:08.049 --> 00:09:13.490 Women, business, and chicken all have that reduced 00:09:13.490 --> 00:09:17.289 e vowel sound that sounds like an I. Before we 00:09:17.289 --> 00:09:19.730 end this episode, I want to test your listening 00:09:19.730 --> 00:09:23.159 comprehension. Just listen and see if you can 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:26.379 notice these different vowel sounds. I'm going 00:09:26.379 --> 00:09:28.940 to put these sentences in the description so 00:09:28.940 --> 00:09:32.620 you can also look at them, but try to test your 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:35.779 ear and see if you can hear the difference. She 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:38.460 sent an email about the problem, and her message 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:41.539 was clear. In the end, though, the different 00:09:41.539 --> 00:09:45.100 details were decided by the system. Those sentences 00:09:45.100 --> 00:09:48.539 actually had all five vowel sounds. We had the 00:09:48.539 --> 00:09:54.009 short E. which was sent and end, the long E, 00:09:54.210 --> 00:09:59.549 which is she and email, the schwa E in problem 00:09:59.549 --> 00:10:04.909 and system, the R controlled E in her, and the 00:10:04.909 --> 00:10:09.070 reduced E in different. How did you do? Did you 00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:12.350 get all five sounds? If you did, please leave 00:10:12.350 --> 00:10:15.419 a comment and let me know. Or if one of those 00:10:15.419 --> 00:10:18.320 was particularly difficult or if this is the 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:20.820 first time you ever heard of them, please also 00:10:20.820 --> 00:10:23.940 leave a comment and let me know. Like I said, 00:10:23.980 --> 00:10:26.940 a native speaker is trained to really listen 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:30.179 to the sound because we know that different words 00:10:30.179 --> 00:10:33.100 have different pronunciation, even though the 00:10:33.100 --> 00:10:35.159 letter might be the same. And that's what you 00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:38.120 want to do. You want to start practicing your 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:41.139 listening comprehension. You want to try to hear 00:10:41.139 --> 00:10:44.090 the sound instead of just guessing. and every 00:10:44.090 --> 00:10:46.870 time you do that you're going to notice that 00:10:46.870 --> 00:10:49.190 your english is going to get slightly better 00:10:49.190 --> 00:10:52.710 practice as much as you can listening and also 00:10:52.710 --> 00:10:55.450 see if you can repeat some of these words and 00:10:55.450 --> 00:10:58.629 master the pronunciation see if you can pronounce 00:10:58.629 --> 00:11:01.289 them like a native speaker because that really 00:11:01.289 --> 00:11:05.120 is the best way to help reduce your accent I 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:07.820 hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:10.740 are finding these pronunciation guides helpful. 00:11:11.100 --> 00:11:13.980 I know that English is very difficult, so we're 00:11:13.980 --> 00:11:16.899 going to continue to discuss more vowel sounds 00:11:16.899 --> 00:11:19.779 and we will do more episodes like this in the 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:22.639 future. If you found this episode helpful, please 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:25.139 share it with someone who is also learning English. 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:28.059 That way they can practice their English pronunciation. 00:11:28.970 --> 00:11:31.730 You can also leave us a review on whatever app 00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:35.090 you are using to listen to this podcast on. Both 00:11:35.090 --> 00:11:37.830 of those will help us continue to grow our audience. 00:11:38.210 --> 00:11:41.070 You can follow us on social media or go to our 00:11:41.070 --> 00:11:43.990 website learnenglishpod .com and remember to 00:11:43.990 --> 00:11:45.950 subscribe to the show so you don't miss our next 00:11:45.950 --> 00:11:48.870 episode when it comes out next week. Until then, 00:11:48.950 --> 00:11:50.009 keep learning English.