The AY-Sound
So the third vowel we will talk about is the AY-sound. For me, it’s easier to remember what sound I am referring to by writing it as AY.
SYMBOL
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for this sound is /e/. Its sound symbol is the basic lowercase ‘e’.
In General American English and Canadian English, I would argue we typically make this sound in a diphthong [eɪ].
On the IPA vowel chart, it is located on the upper-middle left side.
The Color Vowel® Chart, created by Karen Taylor and Shirley Thompson in 1999, is another visual organizer for spoken English and represents how to learn and think about vowels. It refers to this sound as the ‘Gray Day’ sound or the Gray vowel. Notice the consistent placement on the middle left side of each respective chart.
The Color Vowel® Chart, 5th Edition © 2019. ColorVowel.com. Used with Creative Commons licensing (CC BY-NC-ND).
SOUND
So the AY-sound is sometimes referred to as the long-A sound. In schools, children learn this sound as the sound where the letter says its name - A.
This sound is often pronounced in General American English as a diphthong. This is because the sound starts in one vowel position and then transitions to another. In the AY-sound, it transitions from [e] to [ɪ]. So, sometimes, you may hear people refer to it as the diphthong [eɪ]. This is a General American English or General Canadian English specific thing where we don’t often use the [e] sound as a pure vowel. Instead, it is closer to a AY-IH combo sound.
The sound is described as a close-mid front unrounded vowel
FEATURES
The [e] sound features are as follows.
Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel.
Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
In General American and Canadian English, the sound is typically part of the diphthong [eɪ]
The jaw drops a bit more than for the IH-sound and more than the EE-sound. So, if you feel comfortable with the EE-sound and IH-sound, open your mouth a little more. You can compare the 3 sounds at this point to feel your jaw open more each time. EE —> IH —> AY. The tongue tip stays forward and down against the floor of the mouth. There should be some jaw muscle activity felt as your jaw opens.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION
In English, this sound is reflected in spelling in many different ways.
This sound can be typically represented by a few different spelling patterns:
ay - May, bay, pray, stay
ei - neigh, weigh, feign
a_e - made, fade, shade, crane, wade, saved
ai - maid, raid, wain, stain, raised
ey - hey, obey, prey
ue_e - suede
The reason why I’m especially showing you the different spelling combinations that can create this sound is that there will ALWAYS be exceptions, weird spellings, or other things that impact how reliable the written representation will be. You need to be able to identify the sound; rhyming is an excellent way to match it properly. So, if you are not good already, start practicing rhyming and hearing the sound.
For example, consider the following words:
fillet, buffet
LISTENING
Sometimes, it can be hard to hear the difference between the EE-sound, the IH-sound and the AY-sound for nonnative English speakers. Here’s a list of words to highlight the difference. The words are EXACTLY the same, except one has the EE-vowel, one has the IH-vowel, and one has the AY-vowel sound
| EE-sound |
IH-sound | AY-sound |
|---|---|---|
| mean | min | main/mane |
| bean | bin | bane |
| reed | rid | raid |
| peace | piss | pace |
| teak | tick | take |
| sheep | ship | shape |
I’m breaking down every single sound down for you so that you can learn how to produce each sound in English accurately. Sometimes, we’ll have easier sounds and sometimes we’ll have harder sounds.
If you’ve grasped this sound, then great! But if you’ve got a tip that might work for others, or you took a while to produce this sound correct but something clicked for you, let me know down below in the comments. My goal is to have a community know what to do when they’re stuck!
