alt Hacker NewsI've been speaking French since pre-school (albeit in North America mostly) and to me é always sounds more like the English short i (as in "tip"). I'm becoming increasingly convinced that everybody on Earth but me is wrong about it.
Replies
Tyrannosaur • today at 4:48 PM
No, you are correct.
Dr Geoff Lindsey on youtube:
short version: https://youtube.com/shorts/GF1gIaxnULc?si=d4jFC-rLOC5dww-8
long version: https://youtu.be/GNpbv7hJf6c?si=xNz1UjeLY0Ch9eDv&t=366
tombh • today at 4:33 PM
They're extremely close! /ɪ/ literally sits next to /e/ on the vowel chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram#/media/File%3AIP...
Do you happen to be from the western US or Canada? They tend to lower the /ɪ/ monophthong (i of tip, pit, sit, etc.) there, making it sound pretty close to /e/ (French é, German eh). It's one of those things that, combined with regionalisms and other accent features, give away where you grew up :) I noticed a lot of Londoners do this too, though this is just my experience.