EE vs. IH, Long and Short Vowels - American English

In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to talk a little more about the

vowels EE and IH.

Here along the Hudson River for Fleet Week, they're bringing out some old-time replica

ships.

Like the ones taken in this photo by my friend Jovon.

And this made me think about the vowels EE and IH. 'Ships' has the IH as in SIT vowel.

And 'fleet' 'week' both have the EE as in SHE vowels. Now, I just did a video on the

IH vowel versus the EE vowel, a comparison. And I didn't talk about length at all. That's

because I don't think length really comes into play when we're talking about a vowel on its

own. But since a lot of people teach length when they teach these two vowels, I thought

I should talk about it. A lot of people will say that 'ee' is a long vowel, and 'ih' is

a short vowel. But I feel like vowels themselves don't have a length. To me the length of a

syllable depends on: is it a stressed syllable, or is it unstressed? So, if the IH vowel is

in the stressed syllable of a content word, then it will be long, even though some people

would call it a 'short' vowel.

Another thing that can effect vowel length is the ending consonant. If everything else

is the same, and the ending consonant is voiced, then that vowel will be a little bit longer

than if the ending consonant is unvoiced. So, for example, the word 'cap' will be a

little bit shorter than the word 'cab'. Cap, cab.

So, in looking at the 'ee' vowel and the 'ih' vowel: in the word 'beat' -- an unvoiced consonant

there at the end -- that 'ee' vowel is short. Beat. But in the word 'bid' -- the ending

consonant there is voiced, so 'ih' will be a little bit longer.

So don't think about the length of the vowel being tied to the vowel itself. It's tied

to the syllable, and the sentence position, and maybe the ending consonant.

This ship was interesting because instead of raising their sails, they had people standing

where the sails would have been.

Notice how 'been', spelled with two E's, is actually pronounced with the IH as in SIT

vowel. Listen again. ...where the sails would have been. [3x]

>> They're holding on to something.

>> Hey Jovon. >> Yeah?

>> Nice socks. >> Thanks.

>> Really like them. >> Thanks, that means a lot.

A couple interesting things happening with pronunciation here. When I said, "nice socks,"

notice how I didn't make two separate S sounds, nice--socks. Just one, connecting the two

words: nice socks. I also said, "really like them," reducing the word 'them' to 'um'. And

connecting that word to the word before. Like 'em, like 'em. Listen again.

>> Hey Jovon. >> Yeah?

>> Nice socks. >> Thanks.

>> Really like them. >> Thanks, that means a lot.

>> Hey guys, what do you think of these ships? >> I think these ships are great. Where I'm

from, in Arizona, there's no water. We don't even have any lakes. And so ...

>> So this is a totally new experience for you.

>> It's a totally new experience. >> They're really beautiful. Um, this is the

200th anniversary of the War of 1812, so they're celebrating this and some of them are, I think

are replicas from that time. >> Cool.

>> Yeah. I didn't know that. She knows everything. >> Only a little bit. Thanks Wikipedia.

That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.

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