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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

Letters A and I

The phonetic transcriptions of letters 'A' and 'I' are /e?/ and /a?/ but why do they seem to be pronunced with y sound as /ej/ and /aj/ ?
  

Top answer

/) are immediately followed by a vowel sound, there may be a slight /j/ glide between the two sounds. This glide may also be present in some varieties of English if the letters are pronounced with no sound following.

— Fivejedjon

  • /) are immediately followed by a vowel sound, there may be a slight /j/ glide between the two sounds.
  • This glide may also be present in some varieties of English if the letters are pronounced with no sound following.
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4 Answers
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When A (/e?/) , E (/i:/) and I (/a?/) are immediately followed by a vowel sound, there may be a slight /j/ glide between the two sounds. This glide may also be present in some varieties of English if the letters are pronounced with no sound following.
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AnonymousI perceive 'A' as /ej/ and 'I' as /aj/
The phonetics editors of those dictionaries don't.
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AnonymousThe phonetic transcriptions of letters 'A' and 'I' are /e?/ and /a?/ but why do they seem to be ****ounced with y sound as /ej/ and /aj/ ?
I don't think it's possible to say [aj] without a sycophant [?] between them thus [a?j], and then it would be in an utterance like "defy you" [d?'fa?ju:]. Note also "defi
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