In this Accent Training English lesson you will learn how to pronounce the letter ‘I’ correctly in English. You will learn different sounds that ‘I’ takes, which would help you to improve your English pronunciation and sound fluent in English with a neutral accent. So let’s get started…
In English, the letter ‘I’ has different sounds. It is the most important alphabet in English as the letter ‘I’ comes in various word, but the sound changes, as spoken English language is not the same as written always.
The sounds of “I”
/aaee/
Bind ( Bl-aaee-nd), Child ( Ch-aaee-ld), Dime (D-aaee-m), Silent (S-aaee-lnt)
/e/
Finger ( F-e-ngr) , Ginger ( G-e-ngr), Kindle ( K-e-ndl) , Picture ( P-e-chur)
/uh/
Firm ( F-uh-rm) , bird ( B-uh-rd) , Mission ( M-e-shun) , condition ( Kun -de-shun) ,
‘I’ takes ‘uh’ sound mainly for two reasons :
Condition 1 : If a word has a pattern ( i+r+consonant) ‘I’ becomes ‘uh’ sound for example: dirt, shirt, girl.
Condition 2 : If ‘I’ comes ahead of ‘O’
for example : condition
Few common confusing words with the letter ‘I’
- Seat/Sit
- Neat/knit
- Feet/ Fit
- Seeing/Sing