IPA phoneme /eɪ/

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /eɪ/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "face", "cake" and "play". This diphthong is informally called “long a” or the long sound of the letter a. A better pronounceable name is the vowel of FACE .

In strict IPA diphthongs need an inverted breve under their less prominent vowel: /eɪ&#815;/. However in English no vowel can follow /e/, and therefore the inverted breve can be omitted.

In Australian English this phoneme sounds [æɪ&#815;], which may be confused with /aɪ/. However /aɪ/ in Australian English sounds [ɑe&#815;]. In Estuary English there is a similar phenomenon: /eɪ/ sounds [ʌɪ&#815;] and /aɪ/ sounds

Common words
Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /eɪ/ include the following:
 * with "a"
 * with magic e: ache - age - blame - brake - cake - case - date - escape - face - game - gate - lake - late - male - make - name - pale - place - plate - sale - same - sane - snake - stale - state - take - whale
 * Followed by one consonant: behavior - behaviour - education - information - nature - paper - patient
 * Other: able - ancient - change - range - strange - table


 * with "ai": aid - aim - brain - chain - claim - detail - explain - fail - gain - hail - jail - main - paid - rain - raise - remain - snail - stain - straight - train - trait - wait - wave
 * with "ay":
 * with "ei": eight - neighbor - neighbour - weigh - weighed - weight
 * with "ey": grey - hey - survey - they
 * with "ea": break - great - steak

Less common words

 * with "a"
 * Followed by one consonant: cooperation, creative, major, Pennsylvania, Wales
 * Followed by several consonants: angel, Cambridge, chamber
 * With magic e: bathe, chase, fade, gaze, indicate, mate, pace, pale, sake, shade, slave, spade, stake, tale, trace


 * with "ai": constraint, entertainment, grain, jail, maintenance, plain, praise, rail, retail, sail, Spain, strain, sustain, tail, trail, Ukraine
 * with "ae": Mae, reggae
 * with "ay": essay, hay, Malaysia, Norway, pray, Raymond
 * with "ey": obey
 * with "ee": Beethoven /ˈbeɪˌtəʊvən/
 * others: ballet, café, eh (interjection)

Homophones
brake - break; grate - great; male - mail; place - plaice (fish); plane - plain; rain - reign; sail - sale; steak - stake; tale - tail; wave - waive; waste - waist; Wales - whales; weigh - way; weight - wait; weighed - wade.

Unstressed /eɪ/, /iː/ or /ɪ/
Many words ending in day can be pronounced with three pronunciations:
 * Monday /ˈmʌndeɪ, ˈmʌndiː, ˈmʌndɪ/ - Tuesday /ˈt(j)uːzdeɪ, ˈt(j)uːzdiː, ˈt(j)uːzdɪ/ - Wednesday /ˈwenzdeɪ, ˈwenzdiː, ˈwenzdɪ/ - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday
 * yesterday /ˈyestərˌdeɪ, ˈyestərdiː, ˈyestərdɪ/
 * holiday /ˈhɒlədeɪ, ˈhɒlədiː, ˈhɒlədɪ/

Words with only one pronunciation, ending in /deɪ/
 * birthday - doomsday - everyday - holiday - payday - today - weekday

Spelling
Very often /eɪ/ is spelled "a". Almost never "a" as /eɪ/ is followed by a double consonant. A consonant is never doubled in derived words: rate - rated; make - maker. A double consonant indicates that the "a" is pronounced or, less often,

Uncommon spellings
Several words derived from French have "é", "ê" or "et" pronounced /eɪ/.
 * gauge /ɡeɪdʒ/
 * gaol now replaced by jail
 * San Jose (California) /ˌsæn hoʊˈzeɪ/
 * ballet, beret, buffet, café, cliché, crème brûlée, crêpe/crepe, décor/decor, déjà vu, entrée, fiancé, fiancée, flambé, gourmet, protégé, protégée, sauté, touché
 * elite, élite: /eɪˈliːt, ɪˈliːt/
 * resumé, résumé, resume: /ˈrezjʊmeɪ, ˈrezʊmeɪ, ˈrezəmeɪ, ˌrezʊˈmeɪ/
 * other: lingerie /ˌlɑːndʒəˈreɪ, ˈlænʒəriː/

/e/ and /eɪ/
See main article IPA phonetic symbol [ɛ]

Phoneme /e/ (as in dress) in many dialects is very different from the the beginning of /eɪ/. In IPA narrow notation [e]  represents a sound that does not exist isolated in English, the "é" sound in French, as in beauté (beauty). In broad notation it doesn't matter if, for simplicity, we use /e/ for a different sound (namely [ɛ] ) as in English dress or "ê" in French, as in bête (animal).

Variant pronunciations
/eɪ/ vs. /ə/
 * administrative /ədˈmɪnɪˌstreɪtɪv, ədˈmɪnɪstrətɪv/
 * authoritative /ɔːˈθɒrəˌteɪtɪv, ɔːˈθɒrətətɪv/
 * imitative /ˈɪmɪˌteɪtɪv, ˈɪmɪtətɪv/
 * portrait /ˈpɔːrtreɪt, ˈpɔːrtrət/


 * Other
 * apricot /ˈeɪprɪkɒt, ˈæprɪkɒt/
 * basil /ˈbeɪzəl, ˈbæzəl/
 * expatriate /ˌeksˈpeɪtriət, ˌeksˈpætriət/

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
While /eɪ/ is virtually the same as the Spanish diphthong "ei", many Spanish speakers have difficulty remembering that the most common spelling for this sound is "a". For example, the movie The Matrix /ˈmeɪtrɪks/ was released as Matrix in most of the world, and the pronunciation used when speaking Spanish is [ˈmatrɪks]. Similarly "catering" /ˈkeɪtərɪŋ/ is [ˈkaterin] in Spanish, and sometimes it is even spelled "cáterin".