question is about two vowels the short I that we hear in words like win and will

and bliss and hid and the short e sound the eh sound that we hear in when

well bless and head I've gotten this question a lot you can see all of these

words have been requested recently and another person just asked for a whole

video on short I in short e so I decided to put everything together for you these

two sounds are very difficult to distinguish number one they sound very

similar number two they're more short and they're more relaxed vowels and so

and they look very very similar so when I say these words just watch my mouth

win when they look almost exactly the same so what's the difference I came up

with a few tips for you to pronounce these a little clearer and to get closer

to that short I and that short e sound when you need to distinguish these two

vowels oftentimes in context people will understand you if you're close enough

but if you really want to differentiate these words let's go ahead and jump

right in and learn how to do this so for this short I sound typically people

confuse this with the long e sound and they'll say e in this case we're not

talking about the long e but I'm showing you that to contrast the short relaxed

ih sound with that ih ih ih it's actually very hard to even distinguish

them when they're just in isolation as I'm saying them now but the reason I'm

doing this is just show you that for the short ih sound my lips are relaxed and

my mouth is relatively closed with my mouth relatively closed of course it is

open slightly to allow the air to come out the tip of my tongue is going to be

close to the back of my top front teeth it's not touching is just think of it as

being behind those top front teeth as a marker for

where your tongue should be because for the short ih sound your tongue is a little

bit higher in your mouth then for the short eh sound again relaxed mouth but I

want you to think about opening your mouth a little bit more not super wide

like we're saying ah that would be wrong it is between the and the ih and the AH it is in

the middle slightly open eh eh and when you open your mouth think of putting your

tongue behind the bottom front teeth and that's going to get your tongue in the

right position so again for this short ih your mouth is

more closed that's the short i and your tongue is behind the top front

teeth for the short eh your mouth is a little more open and think of the tip of

your tongue behind the back of the bottom front teeth so let's give these a

try in words let's start with the short I first a little more closed teeth

behind the tongue behind the top teeth win will bliss and hid now open your

mouth a little more think of tongue tip behind the back of the bottom front

teeth when well bless head don't let this spelling confuse you this is kind

of an exception usually when we see two vowels together it's a long vowel and

you would think maybe you want to say e but in this case it's the short eat that

sound okay so now let's say the words together and contrast the short I to the

short e win when will well bliss bless hid head and let me try it

in some sentences for you when will we win will you dig the well you may

experience bliss when the priest will give a will bless you and the bird hid

his head in the sand so give it a try I know people are going to notice the

difference if you found this helpful we would really appreciate it if you shared

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your comments in the comment section below and if you want to practice some

more please check out my practice workbooks on Google Play and iTunes and

my class options at tarle speech dot com thank you so much

take care