Pronunciation exercises: \ɪ\ vs \iː\

Together with the page possible pronunciation difficulties, this page sets out some common words that can be used to become more aware of how to improve the pronunciation of the vowel sounds **/ɪ/** and **/iː/**.

/ɪ/ is short and lax.

/iː/ is long and tense, normally a diphthong [ij] or [iɪ]. Its beginning is not identical to /ɪ/.

## Stressed syllable

### /ɪ/

*Main article: IPA phoneme /ɪ/*
* "i": begin, city, did, in, it, is, his, him, interest, kit, little, sit, six, this, will, with
* "y": crystal, hymn, physics, rhythm, symbol, symmetry, symptom, typical
* "u": busy, business
* "o": women

The sequence /iːŋ/ doesn't exist in English. The following words can't be confused:

* bring, distinguish, finger, king, ring, sing, single, spring, thing
* drink, link, pink, sink, think

### /iː/

*Main article: IPA phoneme /iː/*
A word can't end in stressed /ɪ/. In bold words that can't be confused.

* "ea": beach - bead - beat - bleach - breathe - cheat - clean - cream - creature - deal - dream - each - easy - eat - feature - heal - heat - increase - jeans - lead *(verb)* - leader - leaf - lean - leave - meal - mean - meat - **pea** - peach - peak - please - reach - read - repeat - reason - reveal - scream - **sea** - seal - seat - steal - steam - stream - teach - team - treat - weak - weasel

* "ee": **agree**, between, keep, feel, feet, fleece, **free**, meet, need, **see**, seem, street, week
* "e": **e**ven, region
* "ie": achieve, believe, brief, chief, field, piece
* "e"+ magic e: complete, theme
* "i": police
* "eo": people

### /ɪ/ vs /iː/

**IPA consonants**

* bit - beat; chip - cheap; dip - deep; fill - feel; filled - field; fit - feet, feat; gin - gene; grin - green; hill - heal,heel; hip - heap; hit - heat; it - eat; itch - each; kill - keel; kip - keep; lick - leak, leek; list - least; live - leave; mill - meal; pick - peak; pill - peal, peel; pit - Pete; rich - reach; rid - read, reed; ship - sheep; sin - scene, seen; sick - seek; sit - seat; skim - scheme; slit - sleet; slip - sleep; still - steal, steel; tick - teak; Tim - team; whip - weep; will - wheel, we'll; wit - wheat;

The following minimal pairs are not safe for classroom:

* bitch - beach; piss - peace; shit - sheet

## Unstressed syllable

In an unstressed syllable /ɪ/ and /iː/ sound pretty similar. Moreover if the syllable ends with one of these vowels, there are no examples of minimal pairs. This means it doesn't matter if someone pronounces "happy" as [ˈhæpɪ] or [ˈhæpiː], or "curious" as [ˈkjʊər.ɪ.əs] or [ˈkjʊər.iː.əs]. In this wiki we prefer /iː/ because that sound is more common than /ɪ/.

### Word final

Some people use /ɪ/ and others use /iː/

* "e": apostrophe, catastrophe, Chile, coyote, karate, karaoke, machete, maybe, recipe, sesame
* "ee": coffee, committee, Yankee
* "ey": donkey, Geoffrey, hockey, Jeffrey, jersey, journey, kidney, money, Shirley, turkey, valley
* "i": bikini, broccoli, Burundi, chili,*AmE* chilli,*BrE* confetti, deli, graffiti, Haiti, Missouri, Mississippi, origami, safari, spaghetti, sushi, taxi, tsunami, zucchini
* "ie": calorie, collie, cookie, eerie, goalie, hippie, movie, reverie, Stephanie, zombie
* "y": actually, already, any, busy, city, company, country, daily, early, every, family, happy, many, only, party, policy, pretty, really, security, silly, story, study, very, worry

Always /iː/

* "ee": apogee, bumblebee, employee, honeybee, jubilee, manatee, pedigree, perigee, refugee
* "i": kiwi

### Syllable final

Some people use /ɪ/ and others use /iː/

* "i": associate, brill**i**ant, curious, euphoria, immed**i**ately, material, obvious, previous, serious, variable, various

### Prefixes

In the unstressed prefixes *be-, de-, pre-, re-* and certain word-like combining forms such as *multi-* or *poly-.*

In all these cases according to John Wells some people pronounce /ɪ/ and others pronounce /iː/ However most dictionaries only give the possibility of /ɪ/.

* besides /bɪˈsaɪdz/ *or* /biːˈsaɪdz/
* defect /ˈdiːfekt/ *(stressed* /iː/ *has no alternatives),* /dɪˈfekt/ *or* /diːˈfekt/
* multitask /ˌmʌltɪˈtɑːsk/ or /ˌmʌltiːˈtɑːsk/
* precede /prɪˈsiːd/ *or* /priːˈsiːd/
* require /rɪˈkwaɪər/ *or* /riːˈkwaɪər/
* polygon /ˈpɒlɪɡən/ *or* /ˈpɒliːɡən/

Other examples:

* /iː/ or /ɪ/ as "y": anything, everything

### Other cases

In other cases it is recommended to use /ɪ/. However, there are exceptions like handkerchief (see below). Stress is indicated for clarity.

* "e": **e**ˈclipse, **e**lˈlipse, eˈmotion, enˈjoy, exˈplain, ˈimpl**e**ment
* "i": aˈnalysis, ˈarticle, diˈscuss, ˈfinish, imˈportant, inˈclude, ˈmorning, ˈmusic, ˈnothing, ˈpractice, ˈpublic, ˈservice
* "y": ˈanalyst, ˈEgypt
* "aCe": average /ˈævərɪdʒ, ˈævrɪdʒ/, delicate /ˈdelɪkɪt, ˈdelɪkət/, ultimate /ˈʌltəmɪt, ˈʌltɪmət/
* "ie": handkerchief /ˈhæŋkərtʃɪf, ˈhæŋkərtʃiːf/
* "u": ˈminute, ˈlettuce
* "ui": ˈbiscuit, ˈcircuit

### Minimal pairs

There are very few examples of minimal pairs, and most of them involve plurals.

**Unstressed /ɪ/ vs. /iː/** Minimal pairs in all dialects

* axes /ˈæksɪz/ (plural of *ax**AmE* or *axe**BrE*) - /ˈæksiːz/ plural of *axis*
* bases /ˈbeɪsɪz/ (plural of *base)* - /ˈbeɪsiːz/ (plural of *basis)*

**Unstressed /ɪ/ vs. /iː/ or /ɪ/** Homophones in some dialects

* taxes (plural of tax) - taxis (plural of *taxi)*
* parted (past tense of *part)* - partied (past tense of *party)*

## Variant pronunciations

* Stressed /ɪ/ or /iː/: barista
* Unstressed /ɪ/ or /iː/: handkerchief

## Spanish L1

Spanish speakers confuse these two sounds. Basically the problem is that, both **/ɪ/** and **/iː/** sound alike to Spanish speaking ears and akin to the Spanish vowel **"i"**. Stressed /ɪ/ is particularly problematic because when a Spanish speaker pronounces [i] instead of [ɪ] it's heard by English Speakers as /iː/. For example "It is" sounds like "Eet ees". The opposite is also true, the tendency being to shorten the **/iː/** so it is heard as **/ɪ/**, with unfortunate consequences in words like "sheet".

## References

1. ↑ English Speech Services, Seeing the FLEECE diphthong, April 30, 2015.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 John Wells, *believing descriptions*, 10 November 2010. *happY again*, 7 June 2012.

## See also

* Decoding the letter I
* Homophones
* Pronunciation exercises: /j/ vs /ɪ/ or /iː/
* Pronunciation exercises: /uː/ vs /ʊ/