Learn English – How to pronounce the letter ‘i’

pronunciationpronunciation-vs-spelling

Every time I read a new and unknown word containing the letter 'i' I wonder how I should pronounce it. What's very frustrating for me is that, when I look up the words, I find out that my gut feeling was wrong for most of them.

A Google search only gave a few links talking about the pronunciation of this letter, but most times they are at a very low level.

From what I found and read, finally I daresay that:

  1. i is pronounce as /aɪ/ when i + consonant + e as in: time, site, fire, to entire, …
  2. i is pronounce as /aɪ/ when i is followed by gh as in: sigh, sight, thigh, …
  3. i is pronounce as /aɪ/ when i is preceded by a as in: aisle, …
  4. i is pronounce as /aɪ/ when i is written as y: to try, to fly, to cry, …
  5. else i is pronounce as /ɪ/: to hit, ship, sick

But there are many exceptions, too many in my opinion:

  1. to give, to notice, clandestine (/ɪ/ instead of /aɪ/)
  2. to fail, to contain (/eɪ/ instead of /aɪ/)
  3. gravity, paucity, hierarchy (/i/ instead of /aɪ/)
  4. pie, title, vital, giant, modifier (/aɪ/ instead of /ɪ/)

The following words are very interesting, because the pronunciation is swapped to what I expected:

  • indecisive
  • library

My vocabulary is very rudimentary, but yet I know a lot of exceptions.

So, I know that it is hard to make pronunciation rules for English words. But how can I improve my gut feeling in pronouncing new words correctly?

Best Answer

I'll elaborate a bit on Barrie's point, which is correct, if disappointing.

The problem is that English spelling was not designed for Modern English. It was designed for Middle English, a very different language. When Middle English changed its pronunciation to become Modern English, English spelling did not change. Furthermore, English borrowed many thousands of words from other languages, which were of course pronounced differently, and spelled differently still.

The result is that one has to choose between two strategies in learning English words, however they are spelled -- this is not a problem confined to the letter I -- or else figure out some way to mix them.

Either you can actually learn the historical rules about pronunciation and learn to distinguish the different kinds of word each rule applies to -- which amounts to learning some basic linguistics,

Or you can do as Barrie suggested, and memorize 2 things about every word you learn -- (1) how it's spelled and (2) how it's pronounced (Kenyon and Knott is your friend here) -- and just ignore the possible but treacherous correspondences you might suspect between Middle English or foreign spellings and Modern English pronunciations.

The second option amounts to giving up all hope of making sense of English spelling. Most native English speakers do this, which is simpler for them, since they already know the pronunciation.

Since Anglophone education systems don't teach anything about English language, they never learn any different, and many still believe there should be a simple rule for pronouncing every letter.

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