Sound of the week /e/

/e/ is a short, close-mid, front, unrounded vowel. This sound should offer no difficulty to you as it also exists in Spanish.

Its vowel height is close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and a mid vowel ( The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant; while the defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel).
The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called bright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than the back vowels.
Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Examples of /e/ are:

dress /dres/

head /hed/

bed /bed/

many /'meni/

You can download or watch the video, download the poster with examples, download radio programmes on consonant to vowel linking and or take a few quizzes on pronunciation.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.