In Portuguese /e/ and /ɛ/ form a minimal pair in stressed syllables (if I'm not mistaken, something similar happens in French and Italian). The word "sede" for example, can be pronounced in two ways (IPA for Brazilian Portuguese): ['sedʒɪ] meaninɡ "thirst" ['sɛdʒɪ] meaninɡ "headquarters" I've read that /ɛ/ might be lowered to something closer to /æ/ in Brazilian Portuguese, and I don't doubt it, since these two sounds are very similar for our ears. This is primarily why the distinction between "bad" and "bed" or "man" and "men" can be hard for us (although I have to admit that the nasal consonant adds some complication into the mix).
I'm a Brazilian student of linguistics, and I can tell you that these two vowels are perfectly recognizable and sounds completely different for us (so you're right they're two different phonems in Portuguese), and about the open mid vowel, we definitely don't pronounce it as the vowel in "cat", btw we struggle a lot to learn this English vowel as is doesn't exist in Portuguese
@@samuelmeyer6208 eu sei, eu sou brasileiro também, hehe. Por isso disse que essas distinções são difíceis para nós. Então, não que a gente use a vogal /æ/, mas é perfeitamente plausível que haja um abaixamento de /ɛ/ pelo menos em alguns contextos. A diferença não seria notada de qualquer forma, já que ela não é fonêmica no português.
@@roggeralves94 @Samuel Meyer Thanks for sharing your insights! In addition to English, I limp along in Spanish, but I'm not a linguist. Great to hear these details from you!
This is so useful, really! May I summarize my findings about the standard American pronunciation of /ɛ/. Do you agree with this? 1. When it's before a dark L, it sounds more like /e/ as in "sell" 2. When it's before an R, it sounds more like /ɛ/ as in "air" 3. In all other cases it sounds like /ɛ/ as in "dress"
The “official” pronunciation of [e] from recordings I’ve heard, going back (I think) to the original cardinals from Daniel Jones, seems to higher than the one you’re saying. The “official” one really sounds phonologically more like a fronted [ɪ], while I think the common /e/ phoneme realization in many languages and the one you say is more of a true-mid [e̞]. I could be wrong about all this.
thank you so much for the work you put out. i'm french studying linguistics, and i have a class on the different English accents and dialects... it's hell! our french accents seem so clean-cut compared to yours... anyway, thanks again! would be lost without some of the videos on your channel
I wonder if part of this difference is that the anglosphere is more decentralized than the francophonie. For instance, French-speakers in Québec lessen their regional dialect and speak more like Parisians when they are trying to sound formal or professional. Americans don't try to sound more English when they try to sound more formal. Non-British English-speakers tend to be proud of their regional accents and view their regional accents as standard, whereas non-European French speakers seem to view metropolitan French as the standard. There's nothing like the Académie Française for English, which makes English a more free-flowing wild language and French a more standardized language.
Standard French is the result of many years of regional dialect suppression. This also included the discrimination of other minority languages. Bertrand Barère said in 1794: "The monarchy had reasons to resemble the Tower of Babel; in democracy, leaving the citizens to ignore the national language [that of Paris], unable to control the power, is betraying the motherland... For a free people, the tongue must be one and the same for everyone. [...] How much money have we not spent already for the translation of the laws of the first two national assemblies in the various dialects of France! As if it were our duty to maintain those barbaric jargons and those coarse lingos that can only serve fanatics and counter-revolutionaries now!" (from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha )
That was an awesome explanation Jim. On a related subject, Geoff Lindsey suggests that in the "face" diphthong /eɪ/ the 2nd half (the one you marked with a diacritic indicating that it is to be pronounced shorter) is more like a "yod" glide so something like /ej/. I've always had the feeling that the 2nd half of that diphthong is not a true /ɪ/ so could it be more like a /j/? What would you say based on your experience? Thxs in advance !
Because the second half of the diphthong tends to be short, the tongue usually only travels part of the way towards /j/ or /i/. Say the FACE diphthong (like in reality - not an exaggerated version), pause briefly with your tongue in the final position from FACE, and say "eat" - then do the same thing and say "it." When I do this with a classroom full of students, a large majority say that the tongue is closer to "it" or /ɪ/ rather than "eat" or /i/, though we tend to recognize it aurally as closer to /i/ or "eat." I'm going to stick with /eɪ/ as the typical American FACE diphthong.
I'm a native New Yorker with a light New York (mostly rhotic) accent. In my case, the long "a" diphthong has the epsilon sound and "er" has the short e sound (just the opposite of what you indicate is usual for Americans). Of course, you don't say there's no variation.
The way you pronounced INTERNATIONAL at @6:02 is really interesting! You didn't just drop the first T, to my ears I'd say I heard a flap-ish sound replacing the first T, but a flap after an N sound?!?!? How come????
That's actually common for Americans. When we drop a T after an N (winter, enter) we nasalize the vowel before and then just do a tap/flap in place of the N & T. It's bizarre to notice, isn't it?!
Is there a difference between an r-controlled ɛ like in SQUARE, /ɛɚ/ and simply an ɛ followed by an approximant (i.e. american) r /ɹ/ for example in the word VERY? To me the word VERY doesn't go into the schwa + r at all and goes from /ɛ/ straight to /ɹ/ or is this just fast speech? So if I say a VERY RARE SQUARE to me it sounds like /vɛɹi/ /ɹɛɚ/ /skwɛɚ/
I think it's common for the lighter post-vowel R to shift to a slighter harder R sound when it's connecting vowels, even when linking from one word onto the following one, if it starts with a vowel, such as "rare as" or "the square is." Agreed on that! The question about whether the /ɛ/ is different depending on the R is harder to answer, as I think there's even more variation. I can feel how close my /skw̥ɛɹ‿ɪz/ is to being /skw̥eɹ‿ɪz/ instead. It feels very easy for /ɛ/ to drift up to /e/ when I say that, especially if my R is just a little bit harder or more bunched. (For another approximant, put /ɫ/ after any vowel, and it usually screws with it big time!)
@@CaramelSwatches The strength of the R sound affecting or "polluting" the vowel before it tends to make it more typical of rhotic speakers - people who say their Rs after vowels, so yes, that probably is my typical of a Midwesterner than a New Englander.
I've noticed some native speakers pronounce words like EGG, LEG and GET with a more open or with a more closed sound, would it be the variation you have described?
I run into that a lot with actors, who are preparing to project for a larger space - and not just in relation to G. Words like DRESS often open closer to /æ/ than /ɛ/. I've noticed it a lot more in recent years, but I'm not sure if it's a generational change or if it's just something I've finally begun to perceive...
Hey there, new subscriber here! I have some limited experience in TESL from a past life, but these days I'm doing a self-directed data science project trying to automate transcription of rhymes in Python. Your content has been a huge help dusting off my IPA. One of the linguistic tools I'm using, called "Prosodic," relies on the CMU as well as their own pronunciation dictionary. Because their focus is on analyzing stress in poetry, I can't yet work out if their default IPA setting is a representation of the American English accent or something else. For example, what do you make of these text-to-IPA results? beer -> /bɪr/ bear -> /bɛr/ burr -> /bɛː/
@@CaramelSwatches Thanks for thoughts! Nearly every "er" sound in words like "butter," "grouper," etc. is converted in this odd way of dropping the 'r' to only add the long diacritic. At first I thought they rebuilt some Shakespearean accent. But since it's end goal is to output meter analysis, now I suspect their algorithm cares very little about the IPA apart from determining the stress and syllabifying the orthography. Looks like a lot more work ahead for me by customizing the CMU, unless you know of any other good free or 'cheap' pronunciation dictionaries. Cheers!
Thanks a lot for this video! It's very useful! Previously I didn't even think about the vowel /ɛ/ and I thought I made it correctly as I believed to have it also in my native Slavic language. However, now I notice that in words like 'head' it sounds more like an /æ/ rather than /ɛ/. If I try to lower my placement, I can see that the sound changes, and it's probably closer to /ɛ/ rather than /æ/. I think this is one of the trickiest vowels to master because as you said many languages have something similar to it and people are misled that they make the correct sound. Could you please explain in your example of 'dress', what's the mouth position for making the /ɛ/ sound correctly?
You might find my series on the front vowels helpful as you work through this - here's the one on the DRESS vowel: ruclips.net/video/FUZKCZWcRgQ/видео.html
@@AccentHelp Thanks! I will go through all the vowels in your series. Wanted to check, what's the best approach to incorporate these changes in my daily speech? I noticed that when I speak especially at work, I don't think much about all the rules that I have learned. I may pronounce these words perfectly well when practicing but then slip into my old ways when speaking freely. Would you recommend focusing on each of these vowels for a week or so before moving to the next one? Any feedback is highly appreciated!
@@SycAamore An individual's process can be very different from another person's. The focus of my work is coaching accents for actors, and it's almost all based on text rather than conversation, so it's a very different beast... That said, even with actors it's about noticing what is the #1 thing to focus on to get to the next level? Focus on that. Then move on to the new #1. I go into all of these different vowels in my Generican series at www.accenthelp.com as well. Thanks!
The short answer is that ɛ is slightly shorter than e. In a way you can say e = ɛ: . I have found also that it is near impossible to make ɛ: unless you elevate the front tongue a little bit which then becone an e.
I don't find that true for me. In theory, they take place in a different spot - /e/ is higher than /ɛ/ - and I find that holds true in my mouth. I don't think a sound is inherently long or short, though they will have a certain tendency in a specific language - along the line of what you describe. But I don't think that is inherent in the sound itself. It's a part of usage - in that language and accent.
No. It has nothing to do with length. They're different sounds produced in different parts of the mouth. Plus, if you want to talk about length then you're talking about a supra-segmental feature [:], not about articulation places.
@@wagnerjunior6524 I mean because ɛ is harder to say it longer. Then when you try to pronounce it longer, unintentionally your tongue position will automaticly move up a little bit in order to sustain the length of the pronounciation, hence ɛ become an e.. its a psychological thing.. but technically it is different.. Though, you can try to say ɛ: but you will need a great effort, which is not natural..
@@AccentHelp thanks for the reply ! So do you think ɛ: is a natural thing to pronounce ? I mean theoritically it should exist.. But, naturally, it feel so cluncky and unnatural to me, hence that point of view ! I tried to dig into some Romanic and Germanic Languages and their sub-accents, I dont find ɛ: in their respectetive official pronounciation dictionaries. Everytime a word sounds ɛ: the linguists put e in their official pronounciation dictionaries of every vowels that sounds ɛ: ; And that is still true when it come into their subaccents. It would a pleasure, to me, to hear your perspectives !
![Hell's Corner IPA: [ɑ] [ɒ] [ɔ] Vowels](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sALAE6iqLWk/mqdefault.jpg)
In Portuguese /e/ and /ɛ/ form a minimal pair in stressed syllables (if I'm not mistaken, something similar happens in French and Italian). The word "sede" for example, can be pronounced in two ways (IPA for Brazilian Portuguese):
['sedʒɪ] meaninɡ "thirst"
['sɛdʒɪ] meaninɡ "headquarters"
I've read that /ɛ/ might be lowered to something closer to /æ/ in Brazilian Portuguese, and I don't doubt it, since these two sounds are very similar for our ears. This is primarily why the distinction between "bad" and "bed" or "man" and "men" can be hard for us (although I have to admit that the nasal consonant adds some complication into the mix).
I'm a Brazilian student of linguistics, and I can tell you that these two vowels are perfectly recognizable and sounds completely different for us (so you're right they're two different phonems in Portuguese), and about the open mid vowel, we definitely don't pronounce it as the vowel in "cat", btw we struggle a lot to learn this English vowel as is doesn't exist in Portuguese
@@samuelmeyer6208 eu sei, eu sou brasileiro também, hehe. Por isso disse que essas distinções são difíceis para nós.
Então, não que a gente use a vogal /æ/, mas é perfeitamente plausível que haja um abaixamento de /ɛ/ pelo menos em alguns contextos. A diferença não seria notada de qualquer forma, já que ela não é fonêmica no português.
@@roggeralves94 @Samuel Meyer Thanks for sharing your insights! In addition to English, I limp along in Spanish, but I'm not a linguist. Great to hear these details from you!
This is so useful, really! May I summarize my findings about the standard American pronunciation of /ɛ/. Do you agree with this?
1. When it's before a dark L, it sounds more like /e/ as in "sell"
2. When it's before an R, it sounds more like /ɛ/ as in "air"
3. In all other cases it sounds like /ɛ/ as in "dress"
It may move to /e/ for #1, but it may remain /ɛ/ depending on the person - or be halfway in between the two.
The “official” pronunciation of [e] from recordings I’ve heard, going back (I think) to the original cardinals from Daniel Jones, seems to higher than the one you’re saying. The “official” one really sounds phonologically more like a fronted [ɪ], while I think the common /e/ phoneme realization in many languages and the one you say is more of a true-mid [e̞]. I could be wrong about all this.
thank you so much for the work you put out. i'm french studying linguistics, and i have a class on the different English accents and dialects... it's hell! our french accents seem so clean-cut compared to yours... anyway, thanks again! would be lost without some of the videos on your channel
I wonder if part of this difference is that the anglosphere is more decentralized than the francophonie.
For instance, French-speakers in Québec lessen their regional dialect and speak more like Parisians when they are trying to sound formal or professional. Americans don't try to sound more English when they try to sound more formal. Non-British English-speakers tend to be proud of their regional accents and view their regional accents as standard, whereas non-European French speakers seem to view metropolitan French as the standard.
There's nothing like the Académie Française for English, which makes English a more free-flowing wild language and French a more standardized language.
Standard French is the result of many years of regional dialect suppression. This also included the discrimination of other minority languages. Bertrand Barère said in 1794: "The monarchy had reasons to resemble the Tower of Babel; in democracy, leaving the citizens to ignore the national language [that of Paris], unable to control the power, is betraying the motherland... For a free people, the tongue must be one and the same for everyone. [...] How much money have we not spent already for the translation of the laws of the first two national assemblies in the various dialects of France! As if it were our duty to maintain those barbaric jargons and those coarse lingos that can only serve fanatics and counter-revolutionaries now!" (from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha )
I such a specific question on my homework and this is exactly what I needed, thanks!
That was an awesome explanation Jim. On a related subject, Geoff Lindsey suggests that in the "face" diphthong /eɪ/ the 2nd half (the one you marked with a diacritic indicating that it is to be pronounced shorter) is more like a "yod" glide so something like /ej/. I've always had the feeling that the 2nd half of that diphthong is not a true /ɪ/ so could it be more like a /j/? What would you say based on your experience? Thxs in advance !
Would that mean that all the diphthongs are actually not diphthongs, but just vowels followed by the semi-vowels [j] and [w]???
Because the second half of the diphthong tends to be short, the tongue usually only travels part of the way towards /j/ or /i/. Say the FACE diphthong (like in reality - not an exaggerated version), pause briefly with your tongue in the final position from FACE, and say "eat" - then do the same thing and say "it." When I do this with a classroom full of students, a large majority say that the tongue is closer to "it" or /ɪ/ rather than "eat" or /i/, though we tend to recognize it aurally as closer to /i/ or "eat." I'm going to stick with /eɪ/ as the typical American FACE diphthong.
Thank you very much for the explanation!
I'm a native New Yorker with a light New York (mostly rhotic) accent. In my case, the long "a" diphthong has the epsilon sound and "er" has the short e sound (just the opposite of what you indicate is usual for Americans). Of course, you don't say there's no variation.
The way you pronounced INTERNATIONAL at @6:02 is really interesting! You didn't just drop the first T, to my ears I'd say I heard a flap-ish sound replacing the first T, but a flap after an N sound?!?!? How come????
That's actually common for Americans. When we drop a T after an N (winter, enter) we nasalize the vowel before and then just do a tap/flap in place of the N & T. It's bizarre to notice, isn't it?!
Is there a difference between an r-controlled ɛ like in SQUARE, /ɛɚ/ and simply an ɛ followed by an approximant (i.e. american) r /ɹ/ for example in the word VERY? To me the word VERY doesn't go into the schwa + r at all and goes from /ɛ/ straight to /ɹ/ or is this just fast speech? So if I say a VERY RARE SQUARE to me it sounds like /vɛɹi/ /ɹɛɚ/ /skwɛɚ/
I have the same experience with that :D
I think it's common for the lighter post-vowel R to shift to a slighter harder R sound when it's connecting vowels, even when linking from one word onto the following one, if it starts with a vowel, such as "rare as" or "the square is." Agreed on that! The question about whether the /ɛ/ is different depending on the R is harder to answer, as I think there's even more variation. I can feel how close my /skw̥ɛɹ‿ɪz/ is to being /skw̥eɹ‿ɪz/ instead. It feels very easy for /ɛ/ to drift up to /e/ when I say that, especially if my R is just a little bit harder or more bunched. (For another approximant, put /ɫ/ after any vowel, and it usually screws with it big time!)
@@AccentHelp Your explanations are the best ! Thank you !
@@CaramelSwatches The strength of the R sound affecting or "polluting" the vowel before it tends to make it more typical of rhotic speakers - people who say their Rs after vowels, so yes, that probably is my typical of a Midwesterner than a New Englander.
Cruz, i can understand you so much. I say "very" (vɛ˞ i ) and "vary" (vɛ ɚ i). You can found these one word ⟨ɛ˞ o˞ ɔ˞⟩ on the Wiki :)
I suggest using just the /ɛ/ for the diphthong, it makes things much clearer, the /ɛi/ and the second part is the /i/ NOT the /ɪ/
6:39 They do more of an [e̞] (which is in between [ɛ] and [e]) rather than [e] though.
I've noticed some native speakers pronounce words like EGG, LEG and GET with a more open or with a more closed sound, would it be the variation you have described?
I run into that a lot with actors, who are preparing to project for a larger space - and not just in relation to G. Words like DRESS often open closer to /æ/ than /ɛ/. I've noticed it a lot more in recent years, but I'm not sure if it's a generational change or if it's just something I've finally begun to perceive...
@@AccentHelp to me, it's "LA" almost always like /æ L eɪ/
Hey there, new subscriber here! I have some limited experience in TESL from a past life, but these days I'm doing a self-directed data science project trying to automate transcription of rhymes in Python. Your content has been a huge help dusting off my IPA. One of the linguistic tools I'm using, called "Prosodic," relies on the CMU as well as their own pronunciation dictionary. Because their focus is on analyzing stress in poetry, I can't yet work out if their default IPA setting is a representation of the American English accent or something else. For example, what do you make of these text-to-IPA results?
beer -> /bɪr/
bear -> /bɛr/
burr -> /bɛː/
@@CaramelSwatches Thanks for thoughts! Nearly every "er" sound in words like "butter," "grouper," etc. is converted in this odd way of dropping the 'r' to only add the long diacritic. At first I thought they rebuilt some Shakespearean accent. But since it's end goal is to output meter analysis, now I suspect their algorithm cares very little about the IPA apart from determining the stress and syllabifying the orthography. Looks like a lot more work ahead for me by customizing the CMU, unless you know of any other good free or 'cheap' pronunciation dictionaries. Cheers!
@@mattd7828 I fully agree that the last one is WAY off... It tends to be the turned epsilon with rhoticity /ɝ/ for most American speakers. Yikes!
Thanks a lot for this video! It's very useful! Previously I didn't even think about the vowel /ɛ/ and I thought I made it correctly as I believed to have it also in my native Slavic language.
However, now I notice that in words like 'head' it sounds more like an /æ/ rather than /ɛ/. If I try to lower my placement, I can see that the sound changes, and it's probably closer to /ɛ/ rather than /æ/.
I think this is one of the trickiest vowels to master because as you said many languages have something similar to it and people are misled that they make the correct sound.
Could you please explain in your example of 'dress', what's the mouth position for making the /ɛ/ sound correctly?
You might find my series on the front vowels helpful as you work through this - here's the one on the DRESS vowel: ruclips.net/video/FUZKCZWcRgQ/видео.html
@@AccentHelp Thanks! I will go through all the vowels in your series.
Wanted to check, what's the best approach to incorporate these changes in my daily speech?
I noticed that when I speak especially at work, I don't think much about all the rules that I have learned. I may pronounce these words perfectly well when practicing but then slip into my old ways when speaking freely.
Would you recommend focusing on each of these vowels for a week or so before moving to the next one? Any feedback is highly appreciated!
@@SycAamore An individual's process can be very different from another person's. The focus of my work is coaching accents for actors, and it's almost all based on text rather than conversation, so it's a very different beast... That said, even with actors it's about noticing what is the #1 thing to focus on to get to the next level? Focus on that. Then move on to the new #1. I go into all of these different vowels in my Generican series at www.accenthelp.com as well. Thanks!
@@AccentHelp Thanks, appreciated!
Thank you.
Diphthongs don't belong on any vowel chart. The American R DOES since it is a Pure Vowel.
I want a dictionary that shows phonetic transcription, pls .
I really struggle with ɔ and ʌ. I don't hear a difference. 😢
The way you pronounced 'dress' with /e/ sounded like a South African accent.
South Africans tend to raise the front vowels more than Americans - so I agree!
We can't see the chart
Talk about basis of articulation:D
It seems like Austr. Eng. has /e/ in bed. Would you agree?
Yes!
8
🎉o😢
The short answer is that ɛ is slightly shorter than e. In a way you can say e = ɛ: . I have found also that it is near impossible to make ɛ: unless you elevate the front tongue a little bit which then becone an e.
It's not about length. As he explained in the video, /e/ is just a higher vowel sound than /ɛ/. A longer /ɛ/ sound doesn't become an /e/ sound.
I don't find that true for me. In theory, they take place in a different spot - /e/ is higher than /ɛ/ - and I find that holds true in my mouth. I don't think a sound is inherently long or short, though they will have a certain tendency in a specific language - along the line of what you describe. But I don't think that is inherent in the sound itself. It's a part of usage - in that language and accent.
No. It has nothing to do with length. They're different sounds produced in different parts of the mouth. Plus, if you want to talk about length then you're talking about a supra-segmental feature [:], not about articulation places.
@@wagnerjunior6524 I mean because ɛ is harder to say it longer. Then when you try to pronounce it longer, unintentionally your tongue position will automaticly move up a little bit in order to sustain the length of the pronounciation, hence ɛ become an e.. its a psychological thing.. but technically it is different.. Though, you can try to say ɛ: but you will need a great effort, which is not natural..
@@AccentHelp thanks for the reply ! So do you think ɛ: is a natural thing to pronounce ? I mean theoritically it should exist.. But, naturally, it feel so cluncky and unnatural to me, hence that point of view ! I tried to dig into some Romanic and Germanic Languages and their sub-accents, I dont find ɛ: in their respectetive official pronounciation dictionaries. Everytime a word sounds ɛ: the linguists put e in their official pronounciation dictionaries of every vowels that sounds ɛ: ; And that is still true when it come into their subaccents. It would a pleasure, to me, to hear your perspectives !
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift