Now it is time to start working on vowel recognition. In real life, words will not be written for you, so you must rely on your ears and sound discrimination.
The following exercise is then a recognition exercise of vowel sounds. Whether you are in class working with your partners or at home working by yourself, answer the following question for every single pair of contrastive words out loud.
In this oral exercise, we will practice with these four vowel sounds /iy/, /ı/, /ey/, and /ε/. Take a look at the example:
What does _________ mean?
Ex. leave: the opposite of stay
Ex: live: the opposite of die
- scene / sin
- miss / mess
- deed / did / dead
- heal / hill / hell
- mitt / met / meat / mate
- heat / hit / hate
- beads / bids / beds
- sweet / sweat
- bean / been
- it / eat / eight
- bait / beet / bit
- feet / fate / fit
- wit / wait / wet
Now, as the second part of this exercise, try to transcribe the words above:
- scene /siyn/
- sin /sın/
- miss /mıs/
- mess /mεs/
- deed /diyd/
- did /dıd/
- dead /dεd/
Continue with the rest of the words in the first exercise, and then compare with a partner or ask your teacher to take a look at your transcriptions.
Get the answers to the transcription exercise here:
Practicing with /ey/ and recognizing transcriptions
