Response to Question: ‘ay’ as in ‘say’ Sound
This is in response to a question posted on one of my videos on YouTube. The video was the how-to video for the ‘ay’ as in ‘say’ sound:
(To view the transcript of that video, see the page for ‘ay’ as in ‘say’.)
The question asked was:
hi i always appreciate practicality of your great video. Just one question about this video though, i don’t understand what you mean by touching the roof of the mouth. When you pronounce A it doesn’t seem touch the roof….
My response:
First off, thanks for your question! In your question, we are faced with one of the problems of learning English: it is not a phonetic language, so when you write A I am not sure which sound you mean (there are many ways it can be pronounced). That is why I have chosen to respond here, where I can use images from the International Phonetic Alphabet, which are unique.
As you might already know, ‘diphthong’ means this sound unit contains two separate sounds. The first, I explain, is either the ‘eh’ as in ‘bed’ (IPA symbol: [ε]) or the closed e (IPA symbol: []). The second sound does not occur on its own in English as a single vowel sound. Most sources use the closed e [] sound, which is what I explain in my video. In this sound, the tongue does touch: it is the back of the tongue, which comes up to touch the very back of the roof of the mouth/very top of the throat.
The second sound is written as the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ [ɪ], though I find in practice is sort of half way between this vowel and the more forward ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ [i]. In both these sounds, the tongue does touch the roof of the mouth.
If you have not already viewed the videos linked to above for the individual sounds, you may find that helpful.
Please let me know if this explanation is not clear! If you have any follow-up questions regarding the ‘ay’ as in ‘say’ [eɪ] sound, or any other questions, please feel free to ask.
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