Decoding the letter E

The letter E (lowercase e, pronounced /iː/), as most vowel letters in English, has four main pronunciations:
 * So-called “short e”, IPA phoneme //, as in dress, get, getting, second or merry
 * So-called “long e”, IPA phoneme /iː/, as in he, region or scene
 * Long "er" monophtong (short vowel spelling), IPA phoneme /ɜː/, as in term, defer or deferred
 * Long "er" diphthong (long vowel spelling), IPA phoneme /ɪə/, as in here or period

It also can be pronounced /ɪ/ as in believe &mdash; plus other, less common pronunciations, sometimes in combination with other letters, and, of course, it can be used as schwa. Its use as a final, silent e should also be pointed out. Plus the two pronunciations of the English definite article, the (usually, /ðiː/ before a vowel sound and /ðə/ before a consonant sound).

As /iː/
See main article IPA phoneme /iː/ See also So-called “long e”


 * at end: be - he - me - she - we
 * as stressed syllable:
 * with magic e: athlete - Chinese - compete - complete - concede - concrete - extreme - Japanese - Lebanese - Portuguese - scene - Steve - theme - these
 * Plurals of Greek words: analyses - crises - oases - theses
 * Male Greek names: Achilles /əˈkɪliːz/ - Archimedes /ˌɑːrkəˈmiːdiːz/ - Diogenes /daɪˈɒdʒəniːz/ - Hercules /ˈhɜrkjəliːz/ - Sophocles /ˈsɒfəkliːz/ - Ulysses /ˈjuːlɪsiːz, juːˈlɪsiːz/

As //
See main article IPA phoneme // See also So-called “short e” and Word stress § The letter e


 * ending in e + consonants:
 * benefit, credit, development, eleven, every, evidence, exit, general, level, never, present, president, second, special, several, very
 * other: better, center, edge, else, enter, entrance, envy, identity, investment, letter, member, question, section, sentence, together, whether

As /ɪ/
See main article IPA phoneme /ɪ/
 * As a stressed syllable: England - English - pretty
 * As an initial unstressed syllable, especially, but not exclusively, in two-syllable verbs:
 * verbs: believe - defeat - defend - receive - rehearse - release - repeat - respect - retrieve
 * others: defence - eleven - enough
 * See also Word stress § The letter e


 * as past tense of regular verbs finishing /t/ or /d/: accepted - arrested - awarded - loaded - offended - recorded - repeated - sorted - suggested - tempted - wanted

As /iː/ or /ɪ/
As a final unstressed vowel. See also Pronunciation exercises: /ɪ/ vs /iː/ § Unstressed syllable and Decoding exercises: "é".
 * abalone - aborigine - adobe - anemone - Apache - apocope - epitome - Comanche - guacamole - hyperbole - simile - syncope - tamale
 * Chile - Gethsemane - Jesse - Yosemite
 * Female Greek names: Antigone /ænˈtɪgəniː/ - Aphrodite /ˌæfrəˈdaɪtiː/ - Ariadne /ˌæriːˈædniː/ - Berenice /ˌbrəˈnaɪsiː/ - Calliope /kəˈlaɪəpiː/ - Chloe /ˈkləʊiː/ - Circe /ˈsɜːrsiː/ - Daphne /ˈdæfniː/ - Eurydice /jʊˈrɪdəsiː/ - Euterpe /juːˈtɜːrpiː/ - Hebe /ˈhiːbiː/ - Hermione /hɜːrˈmaɪəniː/ - Irene /aɪˈriːniː/ - Melpomene /mlˈpɒməniː/ - Mnemosyne /niˈmɒsəni, niˈmɒzəni/ - Nike /ˈnaɪkiː/ - Penelope /pəˈnləpiː/ - Persephone /pərˈsfəniː/ - Phoebe /ˈfiːbiː/ - Selene /sɪˈliːniː/ - Terpsichore /tɜrpˈsɪkəriː/ - Zoe /ˈzəʊiː/
 * Female Greek names: Antigone /ænˈtɪgəniː/ - Aphrodite /ˌæfrəˈdaɪtiː/ - Ariadne /ˌæriːˈædniː/ - Berenice /ˌbrəˈnaɪsiː/ - Calliope /kəˈlaɪəpiː/ - Chloe /ˈkləʊiː/ - Circe /ˈsɜːrsiː/ - Daphne /ˈdæfniː/ - Eurydice /jʊˈrɪdəsiː/ - Euterpe /juːˈtɜːrpiː/ - Hebe /ˈhiːbiː/ - Hermione /hɜːrˈmaɪəniː/ - Irene /aɪˈriːniː/ - Melpomene /mlˈpɒməniː/ - Mnemosyne /niˈmɒsəni, niˈmɒzəni/ - Nike /ˈnaɪkiː/ - Penelope /pəˈnləpiː/ - Persephone /pərˈsfəniː/ - Phoebe /ˈfiːbiː/ - Selene /sɪˈliːniː/ - Terpsichore /tɜrpˈsɪkəriː/ - Zoe /ˈzəʊiː/

As schwa
See main article schwa.

''See also below


 * at end: business, current, different, eleven, even, government, happen, investment, interest, item, level, listen, model, moment, often, open, parent, president, problem, recent, seven, statement, student, system, travel

Spelling anomaly
As /eɪ/: carburetor

Silent final "e"
See main article Silent e.

In addition to magic e (next section) we have examples like dance, horse, giraffe, little and have.

Magic e
The pattern VCe#, where V is any vowel, C is any consonant and # is the end of the word, is known as magic e.

Magic e is silent but not redundant, as these examples show:


 * /æ/ - /eɪ/: rat - rate; /ɑː/ - //: car - care;
 * // - /iː/: get - scene; /ɜː/ - /ɪə/: her - here;
 * /ɪ/ - /aɪ/: quit - quite; /ɜː/ - /aɪə/: sir - fire
 * /ɒ/ - /əʊ/: hop - hope; /ɔː/ - /ɔː/: north - more
 * /ʌ/ - /juː/: tub - tube; /ɜː/ - /jʊə/: fur - cure

Many compound words and words with suffixes have a silent e in the middle of the word
 * careless, extremely, evening, fireproof, forecast, lively, moreover, pipeline, precisely, rarely, safety, shareholder, statement

Past tense of regular verbs
See main article Past tense pronunciation.


 * grabbed, liked, played, trapped

Other

 * "er" as /r/: different, interest, preference, several
 * improvement, lovely, movement, relatively, somebody, something, sometimes, vineyard

See also Varisyllabic words.

ea
See main article Decoding exercises: "ea".


 * as /iː/:
 * as /e/:
 * ear
 * as /ɪə/: clear - dear - ear - fear - hear - near
 * as /ə/: bear - wear
 * as /ɜː/: early - earn - earth - heard - hearse - learn - pearl - rehearsal - rehearse - search

ee
See main article IPA phoneme /iː/.
 * /iː/ agree - between - breed - breeze - deep - eel - fee - feel - free - greed - green - guarantee - knee - leek - meek - meet - need - reed - see - seed - seek - sleek - steel - steep - tee - teeth - tree - weed - week
 * /iː/ or /ɪ/. See Pronunciation exercises: /ɪ/ vs /iː/: coffee - commitee

"ee" is a very reliable spelling pattern. Probably the only exception is the word "been".
 * been /biːn, bɪn /


 * eer
 * /ɪə/: career - deer - engineer - peer
 * /iːə/: freer

ei
See main article Decoding exercises: "ei"

ey
See main article Decoding exercises: "ey"

eu
See main article Decoding exercises: "eu".
 * As /juː/: eucalyptus - euphoria
 * As /juː/ or /uː/: neuter - neutral
 * As /iːə/: museum


 * eur
 * As /jʊə/: euro - Europe - European
 * As /jʊə/ or /ʊə/: neuron
 * As /ə/: amateur

ew
See main article IPA phoneme /uː/.
 * As /uː/: brew - chew - crew - jewel - screw
 * Past tense: blew - drew - flew - grew - threw


 * As /juː/ or /uː/: knew - new - stew
 * As /juː/: few - nephew
 * Anomalies: as /əʊ/: sew - sewn

er
Main article: Decoding exercises: "er"
 * /ɜː/: defer - fern - her - herd - person - prefer - sperm - stern - term - tern - were
 * /ə/: butter - ever - never - summer - teacher - water - weather


 * ere
 * /ɪə/: here - mere - severe - sphere
 * /ə/: there - where


 * err
 * //: deterrent - error - Jerry - territory - terrorist
 * /ɜː/: deferred - deferring - deterrent - preferred - preferring

Other

 * /aɪ/: eye
 * "eo"
 * Main article: Decoding exercises: "eo"
 * /iː/: people
 * //: jeopardise - jeopardize - leopard
 * /ɪ/ or /ə/: pigeon
 * /ə/: surgeon
 * Two syllables:
 * /iːɒ/: neon
 * /iːəʊ/: rodeo - Romeo - stereo - video

Homophones
See main article Homophone.


 * blew - blue; hear - here; he'd - heed; heel - he'll; leak - leek; meat - meet; read (present) - reed (tall grass-like plant from wet places); read (past) - red; sea - see - C; steal - steel; tern (bird similar to a gull) - turn; threw - through; weak - week; we'll - wheel; we'd - weed;

Respellings
Def Leppard, Deftones, Led Zeppelin, Megadeth

Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1
Preconceived ideas and other interferences from L1 obviously interfere in many cases with how students perceive - and pronounce - sounds/words in English. The following sections aims to point out some of the most typical difficulties teachers and students may encounter regarding pronunciation.

Spanish
Many Spanish speakers will try, instinctively, to pronounce it as /e/ which is very similar to the letter "e" in Spanish, forgetting that very often "e" sounds as /iː/. This is particularly true of cognates, such as previous (previo) pronounced as, region (región) pronounced as or worse , or decent (decente) pronounced as.

The same situation arises when the sequence "er" is sounded For example, they tend to pronounce  instead of  (English "period", Spanish período or periodo).