Ideally, pronounce your 'e' like the letter 'e' in the word "obey" or the word "hey", but clip it short. English long vowel sounds tend to be diphthongs, which is to say that they are blends of more than one sound. Esperanto vowels are not blends. The word "se" is BETWEEN the 'se' in the word "seven" and the 'ay' in the word "say". Start with the English word "say", but clip it short.

Polaris:Ideally, pronounce your 'e' like the letter 'e' in the word "obey" or the word "hey", but clip it short...

Which is why this is a terrible way to explain it. Instead of saying that "se" is pronounced by "say" with the A clipped short, it's far better to describe it as "set" without a T.

Rejsi:

Polaris:Ideally, pronounce your 'e' like the letter 'e' in the word "obey" or the word "hey", but clip it short...

Which is why this is a terrible way to explain it. Instead of saying that "se" is pronounced by "say" with the A clipped short, it's far better to describe it as "set" without a T.

A terrible way to explain it, huh? Perhaps you can explain to me how it's worse to describe to someone how to actually say the syllable correctly than it would be to tell them something incorrect. I say that because what you're saying (set without the t) is actually not correct--the sound of 'e' in Esperanto is between a short English 'e' and a long English 'a'. But listen, if you think you've got a better way to explain it, just offer your suggestion--you don't have to preface it by telling people who are just trying to help how "terrible" you think their suggestion was.

Polaris:

Rejsi:

Polaris:Ideally, pronounce your 'e' like the letter 'e' in the word "obey" or the word "hey", but clip it short...

Which is why this is a terrible way to explain it. Instead of saying that "se" is pronounced by "say" with the A clipped short, it's far better to describe it as "set" without a T.

A terrible way to explain it, huh? Perhaps you can explain to me how it's worse to describe to someone how to actually say the syllable correctly than it would be to tell them something incorrect. I say that because what you're saying (set without the t) is actually not correct--the sound of 'e' in Esperanto is between a short English 'e' and a long English 'a'. But listen, if you think you've got a better way to explain it, just offer your suggestion--you don't have to preface it by telling people who are just trying to help how "terrible" you think their suggestion was.

Actually, Polaris, in the Russian section of La Fundamento, Zamenhof clearly assigns the Russian letter "Eh oborotnoye" to the Esperanto "e". The Russian letter is indeed pronounced as the short English "e" as in "set." Since Russian was his native language (or maybe one of them), I should think that's a pretty definitive declaration.

Polaris:

Rejsi:

Polaris:Ideally, pronounce your 'e' like the letter 'e' in the word "obey" or the word "hey", but clip it short...

Which is why this is a terrible way to explain it. Instead of saying that "se" is pronounced by "say" with the A clipped short, it's far better to describe it as "set" without a T.

A terrible way to explain it, huh? Perhaps you can explain to me how it's worse to describe to someone how to actually say the syllable correctly than it would be to tell them something incorrect. I say that because what you're saying (set without the t) is actually not correct--the sound of 'e' in Esperanto is between a short English 'e' and a long English 'a'. But listen, if you think you've got a better way to explain it, just offer your suggestion--you don't have to preface it by telling people who are just trying to help how "terrible" you think their suggestion was.

To illuminate this with the IPA, since referring to vowel sounds as 'between' other vowels sounds will only serve to confuse, the long "a" in obey is written as /eɪ/, I assume that from your suggestion to "clip" that diphthong, you mean that the "e" in Esperanto should be pronounced /e/. Which is, to my knowledge, correct. The letter "e" in "set" can be pronounced as /e/ or /ɛ/. This depends on whether you speak British or American English, but the two vowels are so close to each other that it doesn't matter in the slightest; the difference will be almost imperceptible. Furthermore, explaining it using the actual presence of the phoneme in a word rather than telling them to "cut short" a diphthong is going to get them to pronounce it correctly far more often. Especially when they started out under the misconception that it was pronounced like /eɪ/ to begin with.

It's probably moot at this point, but here's the easiest way:

http://eo.lernu.net/enkonduko/lingvoprezento/alfab...

and click on "E".