IPA phoneme /ɪə/

In English, in Received Pronunciation, and in some parts of North America the IPA phonetic symbol /ɪə/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "near" and "deer".

In General American this phoneme is merged with /ɪ/. This means that mirror and nearer rhyme. In most American dictionaries /ɪr/ must be understood as [ɪr] before a vowel and [ɪər] at the end of the word or before a consonant. For example /ˈmɪrər/ means [ˈmɪrər] and /dɪr/ means [dɪər].

In Received Pronunciation /ɪər/ is pronounced [ɪə] unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. the "r" is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel. Instead of as a diphthong /ɪə/ may be pronounced as a long vowel [ɪː] or (less often) as two syllables [ɪjə].

In General American the "r" is always pronounced. Besides, in some parts of North America the beginning of this diphthong is tense, i.e. sounds [iər] or [iɚ].

There are places in the United Kingdom where the "r" is pronounced, and places in North America where it is not pronounced.

In strict IPA diphthongs need an inverted breve under their less prominent vowel: /ɪə&#815;/. See Ambiguity below.

Common words
Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /ɪə/ include the following:
 * with "ea": appear - beard - clear - dear - ear - fear - gear - hear - near - tear - year
 * with "ee": beer - career - cheers! - engineer - peer - volunteer
 * with magic e: atmosphere - here - mere - severe
 * with "e": Algeria - criterion - era - experience - interior - material - Nigeria - period - series - serious - we're
 * with "ei": weird


 * BrE /ɪə/, AmE /ɪə/ or /iːə/: theory
 * BrE /ɪə/, AmE /ɪə/ or /iː/: hero - zero

Less common words

 * with magic e: austere, interfere
 * with "e": bacteria, Ceres
 * with "ie": cashier, fierce, frontier, piercing, tier

Homophones

 * cereal - serial; dear - deer; hear - here; peer - pier.

/ɪrV/ vs. /ɪərV/
In many places in North America the sequences /ɪrV/ and /ɪərV/ (where V is any vowel) are pronounced the same, as [iːɹ, iɹ, iːɚ] or [iɚ]. Most American dictionaries use /ɪr/. Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary uses /ir/.

See Mirror–nearer merger in Wikipedia.

Ambiguity
Some dictionaries use /ɪ/ before a vowel, and "previous" is represented as /ˈpriːvɪəs/, with /ɪ/ and /ə/ in different syllables. Ambiguously "near", which has a diphthong, is represented as /nɪər/. There are several ways to deal with this ambiguity.

Using IPA syllable separation, "previous" is /ˈpriː.vɪ.əs/ and "near" is /nɪər/.

Using inverted breve, "previous" is /ˈpriːvɪəs/ and "near" is /nɪə&#815;r/.

Most dictionaries simply ignore the difference. Since the dipththong /ɪə&#815;/ occurs only before /r/, the ambiguity /ɪə&#815;/ vs. /ɪ.ə/ appears in very few words such as happier (more exactly  Someone not familiar with the pronunciation could think it is.

Other dictionaries, and also Teflpedia, use /iː/ before a vowel (see Pronunciation exercises: /ɪ/ vs /iː/ § Unstressed syllable). "Happier" is represented as and "near" is, with no ambiguity.

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.