English Lessons with Tom #16: Vowel Sounds /e/ vs /ɪ/

Greeting Eat Sleep Dreamers and welcome to today's lesson. We're going to be looking

at two vowel sounds that learners often get confused. Alright if you are ready, let's

make your pronunciation perfect.

Ok, let's have a look at our first sound, /e/. Ok, now have a look at the mouth, what's

it doing? Ok, it's big and open /e/. Cheeks are high, up there and the sound is coming

from the back of my throat /e/. Nice big open sound. Ok, words that have that sound include:

bed, head, said, pen, dress, many. Our second sound is /I/ now here the cheeks, the mouth

isn;t quite so big so it's a bit smaller. So it's /I/ before the sound was /e/ so bigger

mouth, the mouth was wider. This time /I/ the mouth is smaller more closed. So let's

try that again /I/. So words that have the sound /I/ include: big, pin, hill, middle,

minute, ill and lots of others. We're now going to compare the two sounds within words

that sound similar. So in the first word I'll have the /e/ sound and in the second word

it'll be the /I/ sound. Ok, let's try that. Head. Hid. Ten. Tin. Hell. Hill. Medal. Middle.

Eat Sleep Dreamers it's now my favourite part we get to practise the sounds. We're going

to do it in two ways. Alright, the first time we're going to do tongue twisters. Now what

is a tongue twister? A tongue twister is a sentence that doesn't make any sense but or

has no meaning but it helps us to practise the sounds. Ok. So I'm going to say it very

slowly and I want you guys to say after me. 'He said he hit his head on the big red bed'.

Let's look at the sounds there. So, he said /e/ he hit /I/ his head /e/ on the big /I/

red /e/ bed /e/ again. Ok, let's say it again 'He said he hit his head on the big red bed'.

Your turn! Ok, alright let's try and speed it up a bit. 'He said he hit his head on the

big red bed'. Too fast! Too fast! Alright, but that's a great way to practise ok, is

to just say a sentence like that practising the sounds because it's making you change between

one sound to another sound very quickly. So 'He said he hit his head on the big red bed'.

Making you say those different sounds at different times. Alright the second way to practise

is to use your phone. Now, on your phone I'm sure you have a voice recorder. This is a

great way to record yourself saying these words, listen back to them and to see how

correct you are. How well you've pronounced the words. Maybe if you have an English teacher

where you are or a friend that speaks very good English or family member that speaks

very good English you could get them to check the sounds as well, Ok? Maybe you could record

your tongue twister on your voice recorder and play it to someone and see what they think.

Alright guys that's it for today. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. Remember

there are loads of other useful English videos for you at Eat Sleep Dream English dot com.

If you want me to make a video about a part of English that you find difficult, tell me

ok. Send me an email at [email protected]. Send me a message, I love to hear from you

guys. Come say hello to me, tell me where you're watching from. Where you are learning

English, I love to hear from all my Eat Sleep Dreamers because we are one big community

together. Alright everyone, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I'll be back again,

every Friday with a new video and sometimes on a Tuesday as well I drop in a little Super

Quick English Lesson as well. Alright thank you very much this is Tom the English Hipster

saying goodbye.