The sound /ɪ/ or /i:/

Our next pronunciation lesson is about the sounds /ɪ/ and /i:/. 

Section one: Spotting the problem

Listen to the following sentences. The underlined parts represent the /ɪ/ and /i:/ sounds. They’re two different sounds when pronounced correctly, but many Spanish speakers pronounce them the same way. This makes understanding them difficult. Also, word meanings can change depending on the way they are pronounced.

I’m going to demonstrate both the confusing and the clear forms. Listen. 

For improving speech clarity, the first important difference to notice between the two sounds is length. Most students can hear the difference but when they pronounce them in fluent speech they tend to say both the /ɪ/ and /i:/ as equally short vowel sounds. This is because in Spanish vowel sounds are usually pronounced short and 'snappy'. In English, some are pronounced quickly but others are longer.

Notice how in the following word pairs the meaning changes depending on whether you use /ɪ/ or /i:/ 

Section two: Correcting the problem

We’re going to do a little rhythm practice first with two basic rhythm words: ti and ta. Make the ti short and snappy, but say the ta about twice as long. Listen: ti – ta.

Now say them in these forms:

Take your time and practise this part, saying the ti and ta with their proper lengths.

Now we’ll keep the ti, but we'll change ta to /ti:/. Now you’ll be saying two very similar vowel sounds. Make sure that you keep the difference in length. Imagine you are saying something like ti and tiii. Here we go.

Great. Record yourself if you can to make sure you say the tii  longer than the ti. It’s much easier to check yourself from a recording than when speaking.

Section three: Practice

Now we’re going to say short sentences instead of ti and tiii only. The words follow the ti-tiii rhythm patterns exactly. First you’ll hear the pattern and then the practice sentences. Repeat them this way after the beep.

Make the /ɪ/ sound short, and the /i:/ about twice as long in the corresponding words. Listen. 

Section four: Memorize

Try to memorize the examples from the previous section. Here are some more to choose from. 

Try to use authentic texts and a monolingual English dictionary to find more real-life word combinations to practise with. Keep praticing!