how do you say it?

[kamukamuume]

this came up when I was chatting with a JTE earlier. she wants the kids to do phonics, which I think is awesome. but I don't say some words as they're listed on her worksheet. the kids learn a certain dipthong, "ai," which is used for words I definitely don't use it for when I speak.

for words like "kite," "life," "tight," and "Skype," I use a different vowel sound than I do for "five," "lied," "bribe," etc. I think not all native speakers do this--probably not even all Americans.

do you guys say these the same? neither answer is right, obviously. just wanna get a feel for how obscure things might be for me. I haven't a clue whether australians, canadians, and british people differentiate, either.

[battle_onigiri]

If you're talking about the i sound, I use the same vowel sound for all those words. But if you want, maybe talk to the JTE about using this as a culture point to talk about accents, or bens. I come from south central Texas, with a dash of New Jersey, so that could just be part of the accent here. Similar to "pop", "soda pop", "soda" or "coke" being the same thing depending on the part of the country.

[arislan]

Those sound the same to me, but I can't do the American "ir", "ar" and "or" phonics sounds the JTEs always ask me to say... not to mention having a southern English accent, "maths" and "bath" have different 'a' sounds to me too. etc etc. I tell them I can try and do it the way they want, but most of them find it quite interesting and usually like to explain all about it to the students.

[4186]

It's confusing the hell out of everyone that I say r as in 'oar' rather than 'are' and a as in may rather than bat.