Vowel Sound / eɪ / as in 'make' - American English Pronunciation

Learn how to pronounce the /eɪ/ vowel sound. Practice making the /eɪ/ sound used in words like "cake," "baby," or "wait."
Improve your accent with pronunciation exercises recorded by a professional speech therapist. Find out about the most frequent spelling rules for the /eɪ/ vowel sound. Find a Magic phrase in this video :).

Quick links:
• Vowel sound /eɪ/, as in "make:" 00:00
• How to make the /eɪ/ sound: 01:02
• Pronunciation exercise: 02:20
• Most common spelling for the sound /eɪ/: 04:34

Related videos:
#AmericanPronunciation #VowelSounds #FrontVowels
► Interactive Vowel Sounds Chart: American English Pronunciation
► Vowel sound /ɪ/, as in "it":
► Vowel sound /ɛ/, as in "bed":
► Contrasting sounds /eɪ/ vs /ɛ/, as in "taste" and "test":

(THIS VIDEO HAS ENGLISH, SPANISH, JAPANESE, CHINESE, VIETNAMESE, KOREAN, PORTUGUESE, AND RUSSIAN SUBTITLES)
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TRANSCRIPT

Hello there! This is the "Sounds American" channel.
In this video, we’re going to talk about the American vowel sound /eɪ/, as in the word “make.”
You can also hear this sound in words like "take," "day," "wait" or "eight."
We’ll be using a special phonetic symbol - /eɪ/ - for this sound.

Let's do a quick test. Read this phrase aloud: "A snail takes a late train" Every word in this phrase has the /eɪ/ sound. If you’re not quite sure you made this sound correctly, keep watching.

OK. To pronounce the /eɪ/ vowel, you should focus on the correct position of your lips and tongue.
Partially open your mouth, spread your lips wide and make them tense.
Raise the middle of your tongue to the roof of your mouth and push it to the front. The tip of your tongue should be down, just behind your bottom front teeth.
Remember, the /eɪ/ is a tense sound, so your lips and your tongue should be very tense. Your jaw should be partially lowered.
Now, let's pronounce this sound: /eɪ/, /eɪ/, /eɪ/.

Now, let's practice this sound in some words.
You’ll see a word on the screen and hear its pronunciation. Like this.
You'll have a few seconds to pronounce the word, if you want to.
Let' begin.
[Pronunciation exercise]
• able
• ace
• ache
• age
• aid
• aim
• ate
• babe
• baited
• bake
• baked
• base
• basis
• bathe
• bay
• behave
• beige
• blade
• blame
• blaze
• bracelet
• braided
• brain
• brake
• brave
• break
• cable
• cage
• cake
• came

You're done! Congratulations!
The /eɪ/ is one of the major vowel sounds of American English, and it’s also the pronunciation of the first letter of the English alphabet.

So, when you hear the /eɪ/ sound, you can assume that it should be spelled with the letter 'a.'
And you will be right, but only 73% of the time. The remaining 27% is divided by the following combination of letters:
'ai,' as in "wait,"
'ay,' as in "day,"
'ei,' as in "eight"
or 'ea,' as in "break."

We can’t see a pattern either. :)

Thanks for watching! Hope you find it useful.
Stay tuned on our Sounds American channel!

[SoundsAmerican]

🎉Great news!🎉 Our brand new Sounds American website is up and running!🚀🎊 There's lots of content on pronunciation.🤓You can start with the article about the /eɪ/ sound:

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[yoshi_from_the_turtleland]

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[michaelbettan]

Thanks for the great video! I thought / eɪ / was a diphthong and not a single vowel. Is this in the correct playlist section? Am I missing something?

[drayyoutube]

To me, the first half of this diphthong sounds different depending on whether or not the whole sound appears before a consonant. When it doesn’t appear before account such as in a word such as “day”, the first half of the diphthong sounds the E that normally appears in English such as “bed”. But when a constant comes over like in the word “cake”, it sounds more like the way that the letter E is pronounced in Spanish, like in the word “verde” for example.

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[williamrodriguez]

I've got a small question for you guys! Is the "e" of this diphthong exactly the same "e" as in the words bed, red and when? I'd truly appreciate you answering me. Thanks a lot beforehand! 👍👏🤙

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