Welcome to this Seattle Learning Academy video lesson.
The short i sounds like /ɪ/. It's the vowel sound in the word sit /s ɪ t/.
The short i sound is created with the tongue rounded upward. You'll probably be able to
feel your top side teeth with the sides of your tongue.
(short i) sit /s ɪ t/ (short i) sit /s ɪ t/
Repeat the short i after me: /ɪ/
Our short i key word is sit: sit
When saying the short i sound, be careful that the front of the tongue isn't too high.
If it's too high, a long e sound /i/ will result. Listen to the difference between the
short i sound and the long e sound /ɪ, i/, ship/sheep, grin/green.
The short i sound has two common spellings: the consonant-i-consonant spelling and the
consonant-y-spelling spelling.
Examples of consonant-i-consonant are:
sit, lip
fish
The initial consonant is not necessary for the consonant-i-consonant spelling. So if
I can have a short i in the word sit, I can also have it in the word it.
Examples of consonant-y-consonant include the words:
myth, symbol
system
Be careful of the consonant-y-consonant spelling, though, because this spelling can also be
used for the long i sound, which sounds like /ɑɪ/. An example of this is the word
cycle.
The short i sound is also an unexpected vowel sound in of a number of common suffixes. While
the -ing suffix is phonetic and pronounced /ɪŋ/, with a short i sound, just as we'd
expect, the -ive, -ed, and -ate suffixes are less intuitive and have some considerable
complications.
The -ive suffix is pronounced /ɪv/, with a short i sound, despite the final letter e.
Listen to the -ive suffix in the following words:
active, excessive
alternative
The -ed is ending pronounced /ɪd/, with a short i sound, when -ed follows a d sound or
a t sound. Listen to the -ed ending in the following words:
acted, limited
invited
Examples of words with the -ed ending pronounced without a vowel sound include the words dressed
and smiled.
Finally, listen to the -ate suffix, pronounced /ɪt/, with a short i sound, in the following
words:
accurate, passionate
certificate
The -ate suffix is especially tricky because it's only pronounced as /ɪt/ when it's used
for adjectives (like accurate and passionate) or nouns (like certificate).
When the -ate suffix is used for verbs, it's pronounced as /eɪt/ with the long a sound.
Examples include evaluate and decorate. This is unusual; most suffixes don't have different
pronunciations based on parts of speech.
In addition to the complex suffix patterns for the short i sound, there are also a few
non-phonetic words to be aware of. The following words are all pronounced with a short i sound
though we couldn't guess it based on their spelling:
give, busy
build, building
with, this
still, since
kid, win
pick, city
listen, sister
visit, middle
kitchen, finish
specific
Thank you for watching this Seattle Learning Academy video lesson.
EXIT: a kitten sitting in the kitchen
a kitten sitting in the kitchen