Friday, 7 December 2012

Minimal Pairs /e/ and /eɪ/



/e/ is a short single sound that is pronounced without your mouth moving, whereas /eɪ/ is a diphthong (a merging of two sounds) and your mouth gets smaller as you are making the sound.

Elementary
  • bed - bade*
  • bread - braid*
  • fess*- face
  • get - gate*
  • kecks* - cakes
  • pet - pate*
  • tech* - take
  • well - whale*
  • wet - wait
  • when - wane*
  • wren* - rain
Pre-Intermediate
  • best - based*
  • edge* - age
  • fell - fail
  • let - late
  • men - main*
  • met - mate*
  • pen - pain
  • pent* - paint
  • pled* - played
  • rest - raced
  • sell - sale
  • set - sate*
  • sex - sakes*
  • special - spatial*
  • test - taste
  • west - waist
Intermediate
  • beck* - bake
  • bell - bail*
  • bet - bait*
  • chess - chase
  • debt - date
  • fem* - fame
  • gel - jail
  • led - laid
  • lens - lanes
  • shell shale*
  • tell - tale
  • tent - taint*
  • trend - trained
  • wedge* - wage
Upper-Intermediate
  • bled - blade
  • breast - braced
  • fed fade
  • fez* - phase
  • fret - freight
  • hell - hail
  • less - lace*
  • mess - mace*
  • phlegm* - flame
  • red - raid
  • sent - saint
  • shed - shade
  • sped - spade
  • tread trade
  • wed - wade
  • wreck - rake
Advanced
  • betted - bated
  • dell - dale
  • den - deign
  • fen - feign
  • fend - feigned
  • fleck - flake
  • fled - flayed
  • heck - hake
  • hex - hakes
  • ken - cane
  • lest - laced
  • pest - paste
  • rend - rained
  • stead - stayed
  • vend - veined
  • wend - waned
* the meaning of the word is not important at this level, but it can still be used to contrast the pronunciation with the other word.

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