Episode 203 Pronunciation The Long i and the Short I

Disclaimer

I am using an automatic transcript service as it is not possible for me to do it on my own and I cannot afford human transcription at the moment. The service claims to have about 95% accuracy, which means there will still be some mistakes, so my apologies for having a less than perfect transcript, but I hope I can afford human transcription soon and I will solve this problem. However, the service is pretty good, and the transcript is almost perfect.

Transcript

Welcome to a new episode from English plus podcast today is about pronunciation. And today we’re going to differentiate between the long E and the short IR. Now before we start, let me remind you that you can find the transcript of this episode in the link. I will leave in the description. And if you decide to become a patron of this show on Patreon, you will also get a PDF worksheet for this episode.

[00:00:35] And for every episode we publish every day. So now without further ado, let’s start with the long E and the short IR in this pronunciation episode from English plus podcast. What do we mean by the long E? That is when we talk about words like me T or B and the short air. This is when we talk about short, it sounds like this it pin, this is the long and the short forms of E or IR.

[00:01:11] Now let’s start with the long E. Why do we need to care? And what kind of pronunciation problems occur? If we pronounce the long E as a short IR, we will have words that will sound like different words. For example, sheep will sound like ship and eat will sound like it. So that being said, let’s start by seeing how we pronounce the long E when it comes at the beginning of words.

[00:01:42] We have words that start with long Longie like eat each eager, eel even either East equal, easy. And sometimes the long E comes in the middle of words. For example, mean seal meal, please leave. Reach. Sing deep police. And sometimes the long E comes at the end of work birds, for example, Hey, free B ki T me.

[00:02:30] She agree. And three, and now let’s come to the common spellings of this long E. This long can be spelled as only an E like he or seen, or these, or it can be a double E like see, feel and need. It can also be E a like East team and cheap. And also it can be an I E or E I like nice. Either believe. So that was what we need to know about the law.

[00:03:15] Let’s practice a little bit with some sentences that include this long E in some of the words we can find in those sentences. See you at three, see you at three. See what I mean. See what I mean? See you next week. See you next week. See you this evening. See you this evening. Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you.

[00:03:51] Steve eats cream cheese, Steve eats cream cheese. Lee has a reason for leaving. Lee has a reason for leaving. She received a teaching degree. She received a teaching degree. Now, if you want to benefit from this episode in particular, the pronunciation episode, it’s a good idea. If you repeat after me, if you repeat the same section again and again, and try to repeat after me, because that is the point of the pronunciation episode in the first place.

[00:04:35] So that being said, let’s move on to get some more practice and talk about the long E C examples of the long E in context with this text that we have about the beetles. What is a beetle? Maybe you think of a real creature who creeps and leaps about, but most people recall for English things called the Beatles, who appeared as a rock group in the 1960s, leaving bebop behind.

[00:05:10] The Beatles created a unique beat that appealed to everyone seen on American TV. They were greeted by screams and cheers, please, please. Me. And she loves you were among their many pieces. They even received an award from the queen of England. The team broke up as they reached their peak, but each member continued his own career.

[00:05:40] The world grieved the loss of their leader, John Lennon, who died in December, 1980. Although only briefly on the scene, the Beatles created meaningful music that will be here for an eternity. Of course I exaggerated the long, the ease a little bit. When you read something like this, you don’t have to stop at E every time.

[00:06:08] Of course you don’t have to say the Beatles created meaningful music that will be here for an eternity. No, you don’t do that. Of course you say the Beatles created meaningful music that will be here for an eternity. But the idea of practice for the sake of practice, we need to make them a little bit long just to make sure that we differentiate between the long E and the short, eh, and now talking about the short ear, let’s move on to talk about the short and see the difference between the long E and the short E now.

[00:06:47] Why do we have to care? Why do we have to be sure to pronounce the short, eh, instead of the long E because if we don’t hit we’ll sound like heat and itch will sound like each, which are two different words in this case. So without further ado, let’s see the short IR at the beginning of words, we have many words that we know very well that start with a short air.

[00:07:16] Like is if ill ink itch, Inge into issue it. And sometimes the short air comes in the middle of words. For example, pin symbol, lift MIS listen, timid winter minute and little. Now the short, it does not come at the end of English words. So we don’t have examples for that. And now let’s look at the common spelling of the short air.

[00:07:55] The short IR can come as a Y like gym symbol and system, or it can be a U I like in build quick and guilty, or it can simply be an I. Like sin lips with, so now it’s time to have some practice and see the short air in some sentences. Like when we say this, is it, this is it. This is it. The three words here have a short, eh, and it’s a very famous phrase as well.

[00:08:35] This is it. What is this? Is this? What is this not? What is these? What is this? This is my sister. This is my sister. This is Ms. Smith. This is Ms. Smith. Give my list to Lynn. Give my list to Lynn. My little sister is timid. My little sister is timid. Is the building finished. Is the building finished. Did you give him his gift?

[00:09:10] Did you give him his gift? And now let’s see the short in a short paragraph that talks about the winter Olympics since 1924, the winter Olympics have been an international event. Now these activities are seen by millions on television, men and women from distance cities and countries participate in this competition.

[00:09:37] They all wish to be winners. They ski downhill, amidst, pretty scenery figure skaters, spin the victory skill will make the difference. Some will finish with a silver metal. Some with a gold, but all will win our hearts and infinite respect. Now, here, as you can see, most of the short, it was an eye and that is the most common spelling.

[00:10:04] But if you notice we have an irregular pronunciation for the word women, the word woman in singular, we say woman with w O M a N. But when we say it in plural, w O M E N. We pronounce it like women with a short ear in the place of the O w O women. So pay attention to them. And now that we have learned the difference between the long E and the short ear, let’s see them together.

[00:10:36] Side-by-side and let’s see how, if we change the pronunciation, the word itself is different. We’re talking about a different word, for example, leased and list. These are two different words, leased and list seed. And CIT seed is obviously different from sit heat and hit heat and the head or feet and fit, feed, and fit, leave and live, leave and live leave is L E a V E live is L I V E.

[00:11:15] And by the way, this live is different from live. When we talk about shows on TV that are live, the word is spelled the same, but it’s pronounced in a different way live. When we say, for example, I live in this place or I live in that place. That is the live we’re talking about here, but the live show, which is a different thing, it is spelled the same way, but it is pronounced differently.

[00:11:40] Okay. So let’s move on. Feel. And Phil feel F E E L and Phil F I L L, which are two different words. And now let’s see, there’s a big difference between saying heated now or hit it now, heated. Now maybe we’re talking about some kind of food. He it now, but hit it. Now, maybe we’re talking about some kind of dangerous animal who is trying to attack you and somebody says hit it now.

[00:12:11] What if we say, change the wheel, like the tire or change the will the will is what you want to do. And whether you have the will to do it or not change the will with a short ear. And obviously the spelling is different as well. W H E L four wheel w I L L four will. Did you feel it? Did you feel it I’m talking about some feeling something happened and I’m asking you, did you feel it feel Longie or maybe I’m talking about some cup, did you fill it?

[00:12:46] Did you fill the cup? That’s so different. So if you come and tell a person, did you feel it and you mean fill it? It’s totally different. So that’s why it’s very important to differentiate between the long E and the short IR. And now the meal was big. The meal, I’m talking about the food I ate, the meal was big, but the mill, the place where they grind grains and stuff, that’s called the mill.

[00:13:11] M I L L the mill was big. I visited a mill and the mill was big, but I ate a meal and the meal was big. I am so full. Now. He will leave. He will leave. Don’t let him leave. Don’t let him go. Or I’m just telling you, he will leave whatever. Maybe you should let him go. Or he will live. He will live. He had an accident and the accident was dangerous, but he will live.

[00:13:40] He will not die. Leave and live. And now to finish off, I have a very special poem by Christopher Marlowe. It’s called the passionate shepherd to his love. And here it’s not important if you understand everything about the poem or not, because this is not a lesson about poetry, the important thing we will see them, both the long E and the short side-by-side in one place and a beautiful place.

[00:14:08] To be honest, a beautiful poem by Christopher Marlowe. Let’s start, come live with me and be my love. And we will all the pleasures prove that Hills and valleys Dale and field and all the craggy mountains yield there. Will we sit upon the rocks and see the shepherds feed their flocks by shallow rivers to whose falls, melodious, birds sing major goals.

[00:14:34] By silver dishes for the meat, as precious as the gods do eat shall on an ivory table, be prepared each day for you and me with that being said, I would like to thank you very much for listening to this episode. As I told you, practice is very important to improve your pronunciation. So maybe you want to replay some parts of this episode.

[00:14:57] Listen, again, try to repeat. And don’t forget that you can find the transcript of this episode and more importantly, the PDF worksheet that you can download and practice what you learned in this episode today. If you decide to become a patron of this show on Patreon, I will leave links to everything you need in the description.

[00:15:16] This is Danny your host saying thank you very much for listening to another episode from English plus podcasts. And I will see you next time.