The IH-Sound
So the next vowel we will talk about is the IH-sound. For me, it’s easier to remember what sound I am referring to by writing it as IH.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for this sound is /ɪ/. You can think of it a small uppercase i letter, and it also has serifs.
SYMBOL
On the IPA vowel chart, it is located on the top 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 ‘Silver Pin’ sound or the Silver vowel. Notice the consistent placement on the top left corner 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 IH-sound is sometimes referred to as the short-i sound
This is a hard sound for non-native speakers because many other languages do not have this short or soft i sound.. Many try to make [ɪ], but end up making [i], [ɛ], or [eɪ] instead.
The sound is described as a near-close near-front unrounded vowel.
FEATURES
Its vowel height is near-close, aka near-high, which means the tongue is positioned close to the roof of the mouth, but not as constricted as a close vowel. So if you are working from the EE-vowel position, open your mouth slightly more.
Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
The jaw drops a bit more than for the EE sound as in HE [i]. So, if you feel comfortable with the EE-sound, open your mouth a little more. The tongue tip stays forward and down against the floor of the mouth. The lips, and the corners of the lips, stay relaxed, even more so than for the EE-sound.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION
In English, this sound is reflected in spelling in many different ways.
Off the top of my head, I can think of 4 different vowel representations. I’m sure there’s more, but I can currently think of 4.
I – bin, win, fin, dip, give, with
O - women
U - minute, busy, business
Y - myth, crypt
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.
LISTENING
Sometimes, it can be hard to hear the difference between the EE-sound and the IH-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 and one has the IH-vowel. Try to hear and feel the difference.
Been vs. Bin
Feast vs. Fist
Reach vs. Rich
Sheep vs. Ship
Sheet vs. Shit
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!
