# beer [pronunciation]



## pldclcc

Does the word beer have a short i sound? _<——-Question from original thread title added to post by moderator (Florentia52)——->_

Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr), if they're supposedly two distinct sounds?

Same goes for words like weird, sheer, seer, gear and all the woeds where the ē or i sound is followed by an r.


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## owlman5

pldclcc said:


> Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr), if they're supposedly two distinct sounds?


I suppose that both versions are attempts to tell you that the vowel sound in _beer _and _weird _are basically the same. In U.S. English, they are typically much longer than the vowel sounds in _hit _or _thick. _Of course, it is clearer and more helpful to _hear_ the difference than it is to _read_ the difference as it represented in written symbols.


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## Uncle Jack

pldclcc said:


> Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr), if they're supposedly two distinct sounds?


/bɪr/ and (bēr) are two representations of the same sound, with a rhotic "r".

The British English pronunciation in the WR dictionary is /bɪə/, with a non-rhotic "r". Similarly the BrE non-rhotic pronunciation of "weird" is /wɪəd/.

The OED pronunciation of "beer" is Brit/ /bɪə/, U.S. /bɪ(ə)r/


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## Chasint

It varies by region. The WordReference dictionary has a very convenient way in which you can hear the difference. beer - WordReference.com Dictionary of English


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## Wordy McWordface

pldclcc said:


> Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr), if they're supposedly two distinct sounds?
> 
> Same goes for words like weird, sheer, seer, gear and all the woeds where the ē or i sound is followed by an r.


I don't think they are necessarily two distinct sounds in AmE.  When I hear some AmE speakers say 'beer', it sounds like a long, single, r-coloured vowel.

In (non-rhotic) forms of BrE, it's a centring diphthong, consisting of an /ɪ/ moving into a schwa /ə/.


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## Loob

Not all dictionaries use the International Phonetic Alphabet. The _WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English _does, and so does the  _Collins Concise English Dictionary_; but the _WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English _uses a different system to represent sounds.


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## neal41

pldclcc said:


> Does the word beer have a short i sound? _<——-Question from original thread title added to post by moderator (Florentia52)——->_
> 
> Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr), if they're supposedly two distinct sounds?
> 
> Same goes for words like weird, sheer, seer, gear and all the woeds where the ē or i sound is followed by an r.


The two different representations of the vowel in 'beer' come from two different published dictionaries, the Random House Lerner's Dictionary and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary.  It appears that the two dictionaries use different symbols for vowel sounds.  The dictionary that I use (Mirriam Webster's Collegiate) has its own proprietary scheme for representing sounds.  That scheme does not use IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols.

I assume that the vowel sound in  /bɪr/ is the same as the sound in (bēr).  What is different is the symbolic representation of it.


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## pldclcc

neal41 said:


> The two different representations of the vowel in 'beer' come from two different published dictionaries, the Random House Lerner's Dictionary and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary.  It appears that the two dictionaries use different symbols for vowel sounds.  The dictionary that I use (Mirriam Webster's Collegiate) has its proprietary scheme for representing sounds.  That scheme does not use IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols.
> 
> I assume that the vowel sound in  /bɪr/ is the same as the sound in (bēr).  What is different is the symbolic representation of it.


Honestly, I don't think it is, because in the pronunciation of "bee" and all the other words with the IPA /i/ transcription, long e, the same (ē) sound is used, whereas in all the words with the "short i" sound, transcribed in the IPA as /ɪ/, the (i) transcription is used. 

So it'd be peaceful to establish that it's either a mistake or beer and sheer can be pronounced with a long E sound.


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## entangledbank

Mostly these words don't contain the sound /r/ in BrE so we don't have the problem, but there is at least one pair contrasting the two sounds: 'serious' has /i:/ (or non-IPA ē) whereas 'Sirius' has /ɪ/. I don't think AmE generally contrasts this pair: it has a sound that could be written either way.


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## neal41

pidcicc:  Look at 'bit' and 'bee' in the WordReference dictionary.  Both Random House dictionaries are cited. In each case the Lerner's dictionary is using an IPA symbol, and the unabridged dictionary is using another symbol.


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## pldclcc

owlman5 said:


> I suppose that both versions are attempts to tell you that the vowel sound in _beer _and _weird _are basically the same. In U.S. English, they are typically much longer than the vowel sounds in _hit _or _thick. _Of course, it is clearer and more helpful to _hear_ the difference than it is to _read_ the difference as it represented in written symbols.


I'm mostly talking about the vowel quality here, not the length. The vowel quality from bee and beer is different, beer should be a Near-close near-front vowel, while bee is a close front vowel, at least according to IPA, but the secondary transcription use for AmE uses ē for both.


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## pldclcc

neal41 said:


> pidcicc:  Look at 'bit' and 'bee' in the WordReference dictionary.  Both Random House dictionaries are cited. In each case the Lerner's dictionary is using an IPA symbol, and the unabridged dictionary is using another symbol.


Yes, that should be correct. But the unabridged dictionary uses the same symbol for both beer and bee. Isn't that wrong?


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## pldclcc

entangledbank said:


> Mostly these words don't contain the sound /r/ in BrE so we don't have the problem, but there is at least one pair contrasting the two sounds: 'serious' has /i:/ (or non-IPA ē) whereas 'Sirius' has /ɪ/. I don't think AmE generally contrasts this pair: it has a sound that could be written either way.


Yes but that's not the issue I'm talking about. If the r was the sole difference the BrE pronunciation would be /ˈbiː/, same as bee, but it's not. Insted, it's /bɪər/, with the same ɪ sound, not i.


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## pldclcc

Wordy McWordface said:


> I don't think they are necessarily two distinct sounds in AmE.  When I hear some AmE speakers say 'beer', it sounds like a long, single, r-coloured vowel.
> 
> In (non-rhotic) forms of BrE, it's a centring diphthong, consisting of an /ɪ/ moving into a schwa /ə/.


But the IPA transcription says /bɪr/ not /bir/. Are you saying that the vowel in beer is the same as in beef (IPA bif) but r-colored?


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## pldclcc

Chasint said:


> It varies by region. The WordReference dictionary has a very convenient way in which you can hear the difference. beer - WordReference.com Dictionary of English


Yes but none of those recordings pronounce it with a long E as in "BEEF". Or does it?


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## pldclcc

Loob said:


> Not all dictionaries use the International Phonetic Alphabet. The _WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English _does, and so does the  _Collins Concise English Dictionary_; but the _WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English _uses a different system to represent sounds.


The problem is that the _WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary _uses the same (ē) transcription for both beer, sheer, seer, and words like bee, seed, beef, greed.

So saying the two transcriptions are written with two different phonetic alphabets from two different dictionaries does not address the issue I'm bringing up


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## neal41

Relative to my pronunciation /bɪr/ is essentially correct, and the dictionary that I use says that the vowel in 'beer' is the same as the vowel in 'bit'.  Linguists don't refer to English vowels as long and short.  The vowel in 'bit' is lax, and the vowel in 'beef' is tense.  I think that you are aware that tense vowels under stress in English are in fact diphthongs, unlike in Spanish and, presumably, in Italian.


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## Loob

pldclcc said:


> So saying the two transcriptions are written with two different phonetic alphabets from two different dictionaries does not address the issue I'm bringing up


 It seems that I misunderstood your post 1.

Just to be clear  then, is your question not about dictionary representations of pronunciation, but about whether the vowel sound in "beer" is the same as the vowel sound in "bee"?


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## pldclcc

neal41 said:


> Relative to my pronunciation /bɪr/ is essentially correct, and the dictionary that I use says that the vowel in 'beer' is the same as the vowel in 'bit'.  Linguists don't refer to English vowels as long and short.  The vowel in 'bit' is lax, and the vowel in 'beef' is tense.  I think that you are aware that tense vowels under stress in English are in fact diphthongs, unlike in Spanish and, presumably, in Italian.


I'm aware that tense vowels are phonetical diphthongs, that's why they are mostly transcribed that way in IPA. What I'm saying is that beer, as even you just said, should have the same vowel as bit, the "lax one. The unabridged dictionary on WR though transcribes it with the tense "bee" vowel, same as beef and different from bit. 

Bit and beer have different transcriptions on the _Random House Unabridged Dictionary. _Is there a reason for this?


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## pldclcc

Loob said:


> It seems that I misunderstood your post 1.
> 
> Just to be clear  then, is your question not about dictionary representations of pronunciation, but about whether the vowel sound in "beer" is the same as the vowel sound in "bee"?


Yes, exactly. I wonder if it's closer to "bit" or "bee", or whether the two sounds are in free variation for this and other words with the same ending because the two transcriptions in WR for AmE contrast on this.


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## pldclcc

Loob said:


> It seems that I misunderstood your post 1.
> 
> Just to be clear  then, is your question not about dictionary representations of pronunciation, but about whether the vowel sound in "beer" is the same as the vowel sound in "bee"?


I don't think I've ever heard it as tense as it is in bee for example


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## heypresto

pldclcc said:


> Is there a reason for this?


Yes. It's because 'bit' and 'beer' have very different sounds. 

Bit rhymes with sit, fit, wit, spit, lit, pit, slit . . .

Beer rhymes with leer, gear, fear, mere, pier, peer, dear, deer . . .


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## heypresto

pldclcc said:


> Yes, exactly. I wonder if it's closer to "bit" or "bee"


It's very close to 'bee' and very different from 'bit.'


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## Hermione Golightly

If I take the vowel sound of 'bit' and add 'yuh' I wouldn't know what I was talking about.
This reminds me of the old jokes about sheet and shit.


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## neal41

I have already said that /bɪr/ (with lax ɪ) is a reasonable representation of my pronunciation.  It may be that some people in the US have a tense vowel in 'beer'.  I don't know.  It MAY be that the difference between tense and lax is neutralized before /r/.  I don't know whether that is true or not.


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## JulianStuart

I have never been very happy with the pronunciation guides in the dictionary entries (given how they differ from one dictionary to the next) and am happy there are audio files for most words.  Then there's the issue of r-coloration: bee versus beer etc (for non-rhotic me they differ only in the addition of the schwa to beer).  To avoid that (and differences depending on rhoticity) a pair like shit/sheet and bin/bean and listening should help with the perceiving the difference in the vowel sounds


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## neal41

Look at pages 17-19 at this website.  WCE means Western Canadian English.

"Dialects of English do not show a full inventory of tense and lax vowels before /r/."

"Following the text, I will use ‘lax vowel’ symbols for most ‘simple’ pre-r vowels, though many sound at least as close to the nearby tense one."

Alternate transcriptions are given for 'beer', 'bare', 'tour', and 'bore' in which one uses a lax vowel and the other uses the corresponding tense vowel.


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## entangledbank

pldclcc said:


> Yes but that's not the issue I'm talking about. If the r was the sole difference the BrE pronunciation would be /ˈbiː/, same as bee, but it's not. Insted, it's /bɪər/, with the same ɪ sound, not i.


It's actually /biə/ in more recent pronunciation, changed from more traditional /bɪə/. Of course accents vary, but I think many BrE speakers are like me in having a more bee-like vowel in this diphthong. You will see it transcribed /bɪə/ in some dictionaries because they tend to be conservative.

But note that the choice between simple vowels /i:/ and /ɪ/ in 'beet' and 'bit' doesn't mean that diphthongs have to make a choice of those two exact sounds. There are no contrasting diphthongs /iə/ and /ɪə/, so the exact sound used for the first part could be somewhere in between. But as I said, there has been a historical change that shifted it from an /ɪ/-like onset to an /i/-like one.


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## pldclcc

heypresto said:


> Yes. It's because 'bit' and 'beer' have very different sounds.
> 
> Bit rhymes with sit, fit, wit, spit, lit, pit, slit . . .
> 
> Beer rhymes with leer, gear, fear, mere, pier, peer, dear, deer . . .


Then why does the unabridged WordReference transcription for AmE, the second one on the right, uses the same phoneme for both?


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## pldclcc

heypresto said:


> It's very close to 'bee' and very different from 'bit.'


Sort of something in between then?  Does it mean that there is not an accurate way of transcribing it, and you can use both phoneme symbols?


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## pldclcc

Hermione Golightly said:


> If I take the vowel sound of 'bit' and add 'yuh' I wouldn't know what I was talking about.
> This reminds me of the old jokes about sheet and shit.


Same thing if you do it with bee and yuh though, am I right?


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## Loob

pldclcc said:


> Sort of something in between then?  Does it mean that there is not an accurate way of transcribing it, and you can use both phoneme symbols?


See etb's post 28.


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> I have never been very happy with the pronunciation guides in the dictionary entries (given how they differ from one dictionary to the next) and am happy there are audio files for most words.  Then there's the issue of r-coloration: bee versus beer etc (for non-rhotic me they differ only in the addition of the schwa to beer).  To avoid that (and differences depending on rhoticity) a pair like shit/sheet and bin/bean and listening should help with the perceiving the difference in the vowel sounds


The thing is that there is not a pair for beer that differs only by the vowel sound. It might be that the two sounds are in free variation for beer. Only in this thread for example @neal41 says it like bit, while for @heypresto it's closer to bee. Maybe since there are no constrasting pairs and the sounds are similar enough, it's difficult to tell which transcription is the correct one.


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## pldclcc

entangledbank said:


> It's actually /biə/ in more recent pronunciation, changed from more traditional /bɪə/. Of course accents vary, but I think many BrE speakers are like me in having a more bee-like vowel in this diphthong. You will see it transcribed /bɪə/ in some dictionaries because they tend to be conservative.
> 
> But note that the choice between simple vowels /i:/ and /ɪ/ in 'beet' and 'bit' doesn't mean that diphthongs have to make a choice of those two exact sounds. There are no contrasting diphthongs /iə/ and /ɪə/, so the exact sound used for the first part could be somewhere in between. But as I said, there has been a historical change that shifted it from an /ɪ/-like onset to an /i/-like one.


I can think of diphthongs that differ by only one sound though, like bike and bake for example. They both have ɪ/i preceded by different vowel sounds. So theoretically there might be a pair for beer as well.

By the way, I guess some recordings may be conservative as well, and I know that in the North of the UK there is a lot of variation too, and it can differ a lot from the South East standard. Thanks for the insight.


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## kentix

I see no relation between the word bit and the word beer. I would use this (bēr) = /bir/ and not this /bɪr/. As Hermione says, I don't know what that is.


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## heypresto

pldclcc said:


> Only in this thread for example @neal41 says it like bit, while for @heypresto it's closer to bee.


I speak in a non-rhotic south eastern UK accent, not far removed from RP, whereas neal41 is from the USA. So we will certainly pronounce things differently. We both pronounce 'beer' correctly, as do all the other native speakers here. And as will you if you adopt one or other of the different pronunciations, and stick with it.


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## JulianStuart

pldclcc said:


> It might be that the two sounds are in free variation for beer.


Nope , they aren't. I think that's what everyone has been saying.  The sound in beer rhymes with fear, not with the first syllable of *ir*ritate. Think of *ir*ritate and *eer*ie as a pair and then put a b in front.


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## pldclcc

kentix said:


> I see no relation between the word bit and the word beer. I would use this (bēr) = /bir/ and not this /bɪr/. As Hermione says, I don't know what that is.


Same as beef then?


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> Nope , they aren't. I think that's what everyone has been saying.  The sound in beer rhymes with fear, not with the first syllable of *ir*ritate. Think of *ir*ritate and *eer*ie as a pair and then put a b in front.


They must be in free variation, otherwise you wouldn't have such variability. Transcriptions use more frequently the bit vowel, and some people actually say it closer to bit, even in this thread


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## JulianStuart

pldclcc said:


> They must be in free variation, otherwise you wouldn't have such variability. Transcriptions use more frequently the bit vowel, and some people actually say it closer to bit, even in this thread


I've lost track of the point of this thread.  Are you saying that some people say beer with the bit vowel?  Or that some transcriptions are wrong?  One could think of a continuum between beat and bit, based on slight variations from place to place, but everyone will make a big distinction, in their own way, between the bit and beet vowels.  So beet might be perceived as having a slight movement towards bit, by some, and they might use that in beer.


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## dojibear

pldclcc said:


> Why do some dictionaries, including wordreference, spell it both as /bɪr/ and (bēr)


Completely different ways to write sound. */bɪr/ *is IPA notation.* (bēr)* is a different notation system.

These two *written forms *represent the same *spoken sound*.

Any English word can be written in both forms. "Beer" is not special in any way. For example "clobber" shows this:

US:/ˈklɑbɚ/ ,(klob′ər)

Same 2 notation systems in writing. Same single sound.


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## pldclcc

heypresto said:


> I speak in a non-rhotic south eastern UK accent, not far removed from RP, whereas neal41 is from the USA. So we will certainly pronounce things differently. We both pronounce 'beer' correctly, as do all the other native speakers here. And as will you if you adopt one or other of the different pronunciations, and stick with it.


I actually tend to pick the accent of the people I'm surrounded with, I don't think it's a conscious thing unless you're just learning the language from books. It may not be necessarily regional. It's kind of the same way some people pronounce "picture" as pick-shure instead of pick-chure, or axe instead of ask. There are already people from the US here that find it closer to "bit"


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> Completely different ways to write sound. */bɪr/ *is IPA notation.* (bēr)* is a different notation system.
> 
> These two *written forms *represent the same *spoken sound*.
> 
> Any English word can be written in both forms. "Beer" is not special in any way. For example "clobber" shows this:
> 
> US:/ˈklɑbɚ/ ,(klob′ər)
> 
> Same 2 notation systems in writing. Same single sound.


it's not the same sound though. *ē* stands for the* i *sound, not* ɪ*


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> I've lost track of the point of this thread.  Are you saying that some people say beer with the bit vowel?  Or that some transcriptions are wrong?  One could think of a continuum between beat and bit, based on slight variations from place to place, but everyone will make a big distinction, in their own way, between the bit and beet vowels.  So beet might be perceived as having a slight movement towards bit, by some, and they might use that in beer.


Yes, it's definitely a continuum, but I don't think the vowel in beet has anything to do with it. Mostly only the words ending with r show this variation both in transcriptions and pronunciation.


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## pldclcc

Wa


dojibear said:


> Completely different ways to write sound. */bɪr/ *is IPA notation.* (bēr)* is a different notation system.
> 
> These two *written forms *represent the same *spoken sound*.
> 
> Any English word can be written in both forms. "Beer" is not special in any way. For example "clobber" shows this:
> 
> US:/ˈklɑbɚ/ ,(klob′ər)
> 
> Same 2 notation systems in writing. Same single sound.


check both transcriptions for bee or bit


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## dojibear

pldclcc said:


> it's not the same sound though. *ē* stands fo*r i*, not* ɪ*


Good point. I didn't notice the difference. I say /bir/. I am used to hearing /bir/. When I listen to the "US" audioclip on this page I hear /bir/.

beer - WordReference.com Dictionary of English

Maybe other people say */bɪr/* (thought I don't remember hearing it) or maybe dictionaries are wrong. I don't know.



pldclcc said:


> Mostly only the words ending with r show this variation both in transcriptions and pronunciation.


Hmmm...in English, and especially in American English, the letter "R" after a vowel tends to be spoken differently. I'll explain in my next post -- this thread is moving rapidly, and I type slowly.


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## JulianStuart

pldclcc said:


> Yes, it's definitely a continuum, but I don't think the vowel in beet has anything to do with it. Mostly only the words ending with r show this variation both in transcriptions and pronunciation.


For me, and many I speak with, the bee in bee, beet and beer start out the same - that's why I mentioned the r-coloration only affects the end of the sound, but I've never heard anyone come anywhere close to the bit vowel when they say beer.


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## kentix

I don't think they are the same sound. I don't know how to pronounce r after this */bɪ/.* I try but fail.


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## RM1(SS)

pldclcc said:


> beer, as even you just said, should have the same vowel as bit


Not the way I pronounce them.


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> I don't think they are the same sound. I don't know how to pronounce r after this */bɪ/.* I try but fail.


The way I can succeed is with Biryani, a type of curry.  The first i is the same as my bit vowel.  Sounds nothing like beery-ani.


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## dojibear

R-colored vowel - Wikipedia

American English often uses an "R-colored vowel" to pronounce the combination of a vowel and its following R. They are not separate sounds. For example the the words "fir" and "fur" are both pronounced /fɝ/. In IPA, the symbol /ɝ/ represents this sound.

If "beer" does that, then it sounds /biɝ/. Like post #47 says, the R-coloring only happens at the end. So there are two different vowel sounds: first an /i/, then an /ɝ/. There is no separate R.

Of course you know that English R is written /ɹ/ in IPA notation, not /r/ (Spanish trilled R) or /ɾ/ (Spanish R).


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## neal41

The minimal pair 'bit' and 'beet' shows that the the vowels in the two words are distinct phonemes.  Other similar minimal pairs have led phonologists to create a model for the vowel phonemes of English in which many of the vowels occur in pairs.  One member of the pair is said to be tense, and the other is said to be lax.   If we examine these minimal pairs of words that we have used to show that a lax vowel and the corresponding tense vowel are distinct phonemes, we will see that the vowel is never followed by the /r/ phoneme.  In other words the lax versus tense contrast is neutralized before /r/.

So the vowel in 'beer' is probably in free variation between something like the lax vowel in 'bit' and the tense vowel in 'beet'.  Only a phonetician can say precisely what any given person is saying.


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## dojibear

I am not a linguist. But I know that I use different mouth shapes for /ɪ/ and /i/. They are pronounced in different parts of my mouth. They are not pronounced in the same place (with the same tongue position) but pronounced in a different way.

So "lax" and "tense" are not useful terms for a language-learner, or to learn correct pronunciation.



neal41 said:


> we will see that the vowel is never followed by the /r/ phoneme.


Do you mean "the lax vowel" or "the tense vowel"? Do you mean IPA /r/ or IPA /ɹ/?


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> For me, and many I speak with, the bee in bee, beet and beer start out the same - that's why I mentioned the r-coloration only affects the end of the sound, but I've never heard anyone come anywhere close to the bit vowel when they say beer.


The UK audio of wordreference sounds more like bit, as in transcription, and the US Southern of peer kind of does it as well. And some people actually said they pronounce it more like a short i. It's not super clear.


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## pldclcc

pldclcc said:


> The UK audio of wordreference sounds more like bit, as in transcription, and the US Southern of peer kind of does it as well. And some people actually said they pronounce it more like a short i. It's not super clear.


The vowel for clear, for example, sounds more like bit in the US audio, compared to the beer one


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> I am not a linguist. But I know that I use different mouth shapes for /ɪ/ and /i/. They are pronounced in different parts of my mouth. They are not pronounced in the same place (with the same tongue position) but pronounced in a different way.
> 
> So "lax" and "tense" are not useful terms for a language-learner, or to learn correct pronunciation.
> 
> 
> Do you mean "the lax vowel" or "the tense vowel"? Do you mean IPA /r/ or IPA /ɹ/?


I think they mean the tense vowel *i *and the lax vowel *ɪ*. The places of articulation of the two vowels are similar, but for the tense one your mouth and lips are more relaxed, and also the tongue and the vowel is only slightly centralized as a result of it.


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## Syed Muhammad

Being a non-native English speaker I dare to produce an off-the-cuff couplet about the pronunciation of 'beer'.

beer pronounced with ear
It sounds good to my ear  😝


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## pldclcc

neal41 said:


> The minimal pair 'bit' and 'beet' shows that the the vowels in the two words are distinct phonemes.  Other similar minimal pairs have led phonologists to create a model for the vowel phonemes of English in which many of the vowels occur in pairs.  One member of the pair is said to be tense, and the other is said to be lax.   If we examine these minimal pairs of words that we have used to show that a lax vowel and the corresponding tense vowel are distinct phonemes, we will see that the vowel is never followed by the /r/ phoneme.  In other words the lax versus tense contrast is neutralized before /r/.
> 
> So the vowel in 'beer' is probably in free variation between something like the lax vowel in 'bit' and the tense vowel in 'beet'.  Only a phonetician can say precisely what any given person is saying.


That actually makes a lot of sense: I can't think of any words ending with *eɪr*. So it's actually never a full tense ee, but it approximates it? Unless the *schwa *sound after is prominent separating the *i *from the *r* maybe?


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> R-colored vowel - Wikipedia
> 
> American English often uses an "R-colored vowel" to pronounce the combination of a vowel and its following R. They are not separate sounds. For example the the words "fir" and "fur" are both pronounced /fɝ/. In IPA, the symbol /ɝ/ represents this sound.
> 
> If "beer" does that, then it sounds /biɝ/. Like post #47 says, the R-coloring only happens at the end. So there are two different vowel sounds: first an /i/, then an /ɝ/. There is no separate R.
> 
> Of course you know that English R is written /ɹ/ in IPA notation, not /r/ (Spanish trilled R) or /ɾ/ (Spanish R).


So as I've understood so far, it's almost impossible to say the r after a full *i *sound, there has to be at least a hint of a central vowel right after, might be ɚ or ɝ. Maybe when it's pronounced shorter, without vowel breaking thus not forming a diphthong, it becomes an *ɪ *as in /bɪr/


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## dojibear

pldclcc said:


> I think they mean the tense vowel *i *and the lax vowel *ɪ*. The places of articulation of the two vowels are similar, but for the tense one your mouth and lips are more relaxed, and also the tongue and the vowel is only slightly centralized as a result of it.


This is not accurate for me. The place of articulation is not similar. And my lips are not "more relaxed" for one vowel. They are identical. I can switch between the vowels, without any change to my lips or moving my jaw. I just move the back part of my tongue. I pronounce *ɪ *near the front of my mouth, with a flat tongue. I pronounce *i *near the back of my mouth, with the back of my tongue elevated (near the mouth roof). They aren't even close. 

Maybe you don't pronounce these vowels the way I pronounce them.



pldclcc said:


> sounds more like bit, as in transcription, and the US Southern of peer kind of does it as well


The "US Southern" audio of "peer" sounds nothing like *ɪ *to me. It definitely sounds like *i* to me. 

It is a mistake to imagine that you hear the same sounds that someone else hears (from the same audio). See next post.


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## dojibear

These comments apply to all languages, so they apply to English too:

It is a mistake to think that everyone "hears" the same sounds. They don't. The sounds we "hear" are heavily affected by our native language. In reality, spoken vowel sounds vary widely. So the same sound might be "closer to *ɪ*" for some people but "closer to *i*" to other people. Native speakers don't match sounds perfectly. They just make sounds that are closer to one phoneme than any other phoneme *in that language*.

That is why "hearing" is a big challenge in learning a new language. You have to make the same decisions native speakers make, when answering the question "which phoneme is this sound?"

It also means it is reasonable for some people to hear *ɪ *when some people say in "beer". Dialects differ. Speakers differ. Listeners differ. Dictionary writers differ. Written notations differ. Is anything the same? 

Not so much...


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> This is not accurate for me. The place of articulation is not similar. And my lips are not "more relaxed" for one vowel. They are identical. I can switch between the vowels, without any change to my lips or moving my jaw. I just move the back part of my tongue. I pronounce *ɪ *near the front of my mouth, with a flat tongue. I pronounce *i *near the back of my mouth, with the back of my tongue elevated (near the mouth roof). They aren't even close.
> 
> Maybe you don't pronounce these vowels the way I pronounce them.
> 
> 
> The "US Southern" audio of "peer" sounds nothing like *ɪ *to me. It definitely sounds like *i* to me.
> 
> It is a mistake to imagine that you hear the same sounds that someone else hears (from the same audio). See next post.


that's because *i *is tenser than *ɪ*, so either the lips or just the tongue will reflect that, usually it's perfectly natural for the lips to be tenser when pronouncing a tense vowel. But the position of the tip of the tongue should be almost identical in the two cases, with maybe *i* being slightly more forward. That's why they're similar and I said they're articulated roughly in the same part of the mouth.

If you say *u* for example, it's completely different, and the tip of your tongue should go all the way back far from your teeth


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> Nope , they aren't. I think that's what everyone has been saying.  The sound in beer rhymes with fear, not with the first syllable of *ir*ritate. Think of *ir*ritate and *eer*ie as a pair and then put a b in front.


they sound very similar actually. I'm not sure they make a pair for me. EErie sounds like *ɪ + schwa* diphthongue to me


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> These comments apply to all languages, so they apply to English too:
> 
> It is a mistake to think that everyone "hears" the same sounds. They don't. The sounds we "hear" are heavily affected by our native language. In reality, spoken vowel sounds vary widely. So the same sound might be "closer to *ɪ*" for some people but "closer to *i*" to other people. Native speakers don't match sounds perfectly. They just make sounds that are closer to one phoneme than any other phoneme *in that language*.
> 
> That is why "hearing" is a big challenge in learning a new language. You have to make the same decisions native speakers make, when answering the question "which phoneme is this sound?"
> 
> It also means it is reasonable for some people to hear *ɪ *when some people say in "beer". Dialects differ. Speakers differ. Listeners differ. Dictionary writers differ. Written notations differ. Is anything the same?
> 
> Not so much...


Yes all correct. I've never seen as much variability as there is within vowels pronounced right before an r sound though, as in beer. I think neal41*'s explanation makes a lot of sense about why this happens.

edited *


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## natkretep

pldclcc said:


> That actually makes a lot of sense: I can't think of any words ending with *eɪr*. So it's actually never a full tense ee, but it approximates it? Unless the *schwa *sound after is prominent separating the *i *from the *r* maybe?


Historically, all this is to do with the effect of the /r/ at the end. Generally it had a lowering effect on the vowel. This happened _before _the loss of /r/ in non-rhotic accents.

We can see this if we compare _bake _and _bare _where many hundreds of years ago they had the same vowel (and the spelling suggests that it should be the same vowel), but we hear the difference in most accents (exceptions in some Scottish accents).

Similarly _beat_ and _bear_.

And not _beet _and _beer_. I would say that /ɪ/ is a little lower than /i/. It's a similar kind of thing.


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## JulianStuart

pldclcc said:


> they sound very similar actually.


I think doji's point is relevant - I _perceive_ a big difference, I hear it all the time; in your native language, you don't hear it often so they sound less distinguishable to you?


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## pldclcc

JulianStuart said:


> I think doji's point is relevant - I _perceive_ a big difference, I hear it all the time; in your native language, you don't hear it often so they sound less distinguishable to you?


That's not what I'm talking about though. I speak english fluently and I've been hearing these words it since I was a child.  That means that yes, for me bit and beet have a pretty distinct, very different sound as well. I wouldn't confuse a short i with a tense e. 

Beer, eerie, sheer etc. are different and depending on stress, accent, speed etc. they can have both either one or the other of the two sounds, vut they're usually probounced in the middle of the two extremes.
Even the dictionaries conflict in how they transcribe these words, and so did many other native speakers who have posted on this thread and hear it differently. So clearly it's not just an issue related to the way I personally hear these sounds.

Italian is different, for the fact that it has fewer vowels, 7, and the ones that are close to each other like è and é can be interchanged without any issue. Even many native speakers can't tell the difference sometimes, especially if their regional type merges them.


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## pldclcc

natkretep said:


> Historically, all this is to do with the effect of the /r/ at the end. Generally it had a lowering effect on the vowel. This happened _before _the loss of /r/ in non-rhotic accents.
> 
> We can see this if we compare _bake _and _bare _where many hundreds of years ago they had the same vowel (and the spelling suggests that it should be the same vowel), but we hear the difference in most accents (exceptions in some Scottish accents).
> 
> Similarly _beat_ and _bear_.
> 
> And not _beet _and _beer_. I would say that /ɪ/ is a little lower than /i/. It's a similar kind of thing.


And it didn't happen because it created and mantained a diphthong instead.


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## dojibear

pldclcc said:


> bit and beet have a pretty distinct, very different sound as well. I wouldn't confuse a short i with a tense e.


I have never encountered the term "tense e" in 60+ years. It sounds like linguistic jargon, not an English word. Please don't use linguistic jargon. I only know about "long E", a phoneme in English, using this definition of "long" from the WR dictionary:

_- having the sound of the English vowels in mate, meet, mite, mote, moot, and mute, historically descended from vowels that were long in duration._



pldclcc said:


> I speak english fluently


What region in what country?



pldclcc said:


> That's not what I'm talking about though.


What are you talking about? Is this just general discussion, or do you have a specific question?
Is your question still unanswered, after 68 posts?

Note that nobody in this forum can answer a "*why *did somebody else do something" question.


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## natkretep

pldclcc said:


> And it didn't happen because it created and mantained a diphthong instead.


Actually in all of those, there were off-glides (_ie _diphthongs): /bɛə/ for _bare _and _bear_. The diphthong is very clear in some accents (_eg _Australian), but we now often hear a lengthened monophthong instead /bɛː/.

Some young British speakers might also do that with _beer_ and just say /bɪː/. It would contrast with _bee_ /biː/. See Alan Cruttenden, _Gimson's Pronunciation of English:_


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## pldclcc

dojibear said:


> I have never encountered the term "tense e" in 60+ years. It sounds like linguistic jargon, not an English word. Please don't use linguistic jargon. I only know about "long E", a phoneme in English, using this definition of "long" from the WR dictionary:


Don't tell me it's "linguistic jargon", everyone's entitled to their style of communication. I used the term "tense" because neal41 already introduced it here


neal41 said:


> Look at pages 17-19 at this website.  WCE means Western Canadian English.
> 
> "Dialects of English do not show a full inventory of tense and lax vowels before /r/."



so I thought everyone in the thread would understand what I meant. It's not granted that everyone knows IPA either, and talking about transcriptions of long e which is /i/ can be confusing as well, whereas if you follow the thread it's pretty obvious what lax and tense mean, and if you've ever produced those sounds with your mouth you would know which one is tenser. You can use the terms you want to use, I do my own thing, and I think it's way clearer this way.


dojibear said:


> What are you talking about? Is this just general discussion, or do you have a specific question?
> Is your question still unanswered, after 68 posts?
> 
> Note that nobody in this forum can answer a "*why *did somebody else do something" question.


I was asking why different transcriptions from different dictionaries transcribe different vowel sounds for words like beer, aka close front vowels followed by r. Some of the replies I've received are already pretty convincing and satisfying. I thought it was an interesting question, that's all.


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