PHONETICS: /e/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /e/ corresponds to the monophthong vowel sound in words like "net" and "head". It is called a short vowel. 

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /e/ include the following:

• with "e": bed - bred - get - lent - red - sent - ten - went;
• with "ea": bread - breath - dead - dealt - death - feather - head - health - lead - leather - meant - measure - pleasure - read - spread - sweat - thread - threat - treasure - wealth;
• others: again - any - many - ate - friend - leisure - said - says;
• homophones: bread/bred - lead/led - leant/lent - read/red - sent/cent/scent - weather/whether.

While /e/ is virtually the same as the Spanish letter "e", many Spanish speakers have difficulty remembering that many other words with different spellings may also have the same pronunciation in English.

Written by Victoria Overton

Native English Spain is dedicated to make learning English simple, fun and affordable for Spanish people.