The First Pure Vowel | Learn English | British English Pronunciation

The first pure vowel /i:/ on the British IPA phonemic chart.
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The first pure vowel sound on our chart is a long vowel sound. We know it is a long vowel because it has two dots (:) after it.
The first pure vowel sound is the sound we make when we say the letter e.
E is one of the five letters in the English alphabet that represent vowels.
These letters are...
a, e, i, o, u
This long vowel sound is heard in words such as tree /tri:/, me /mi:/ and pea /pi:/.
Notice that the sound /i:/ can be spelt in many ways.
The most obvious spelling is ee as in the words week, feet, speech and screech.
/wi:k/ /fi:t/ /spi:ʧ/ /skri:ʧ/
But we can also spell the sound /i:/ using the letters ea, as in the words weak, feat, speak and scream.
/wi:k/ /fi:t/ /spi:k/ /skri:m/
But don't imagine that ea is always pronounced /i:/ in English. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?
Take the word bear. It's pronounced /beə/ which rhymes with air /eə/ not bee /bi:/.
But even beer doesn't have the /i:/ sound in it. It has the diphthong, /ɪə/ not the long vowel /i:/.
/bɪə/
But there are other combinations of letters that will give us the sound /i:/...

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