Various Synergies Make All Vowels Language Specific.

Dear Fellow Earthlings, This is Part 1 of a two-installment blog. Part 2 will be released tomorrow. One of my Jingles clients (Mr. Q) remarked to me today that he is growing concerned that he is still unable to pronounce the iy gesture in the English word "Lee" (as in Bruce "Lee") or the the ey gesture in the English word "late" in such a way that native speakers of English understand what he is trying to say.. In short, he seems to lack the ability to pronounce iy and ey distinctively. Mr. Q (whose native language is Chinese) added that when he says such Chinese words as "lei" (meaning "tired" and "li" (meaning strength) he is using the ei/i distinction with no difficulty. Yet when he pronounces (what he thought were) their English equivalents ey and iy (matching the Chinese "ei" and "i", respectively), he can tell from the reactions of native speakers of English with whom he is speaking that he is not doing so well at producing those sounds distinctively -- or distinctly! I explained to Mr. Q that when English "e" as in "letter" is pronounced by a native speaker, the throat plays only a small part in shaping the oral cavity for "e". Rather it is the front of the tongue (rising higher than it would for "a" in "father") and the area around the dimples that create the proper resonance for "e" On the other hand, the "e" of Chinese is a "floating" vowel that can sound either like "e" or "u" -- and is highly dependent on the sounds adjacent to it for its resonance quality. Regarding the "i" of Chinese as in "wenti" (meaning "question") and the English pair "I/iy" as in "sit"/"seat", the basic oral cavity shape for both Chinese and English is front-of-the-mouth closed with the front of the tongue high in the mouth, and back of the mouth open to the throat, with the tongue low in the mouth. Why then can't Mr. Q pronounce English e/ey/I/iy distinctively? I'll give you the answer in tomorrow's blog. Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.