KIT /ɪ/ “pin” vs DRESS /ԑ/ “pen” Watch Video Lesson
- When practising sounds: - FEEL (what can you feel your muscles doing?) - HEAR (listen to the audio tracks and use the hand-phone to listen to yourself)
You may come up with different ideas to the ones in the boxes. That’s fine! KIT /ɪ/
Spelling Patterns
FEEL HEAR
Usually with single letter “i”: will, bit But letter “e” in: England, English, pretty
tongue forwards and higher higher-pitched when whispered DRESS /ɛ/
“e” set “ea” head
tongue forwards and lower lower-pitched when whispered
Comparisons
The highlighted words are all minimal pairs. These are words that sound the same apart from one sound. The only difference between if /ɪf/ and F /ԑf/ is the vowel sound.
Some American accents (especially in the south of the USA) merge the /ɪ/ and /ԑ/ vowels before nasal consonants (/m, n, ŋ/). This means that words like pin and pen will sound the same: /pɪn/. This does not happen in a Standard Southern British English accent.
Words (minimal pairs in the order /ɪ/ - /ԑ/) 1 if – F1
2 did - dead 3 lit - let
4 rid - red
5
position - possession
6 in – N2 7 him - hem 8 pin - pen 9 sinned - send 10 symmetry – cemetery3 1/ԑf/, 2/ԑn/
3/ˈsɪmətri/ - /ˈsԑmətri/ Potentially Embarrassing Mix-Ups (minimal pairs in the order /ɪ/ - /ԑ/) 1 six – ! sex 2 ! pissed –pest
