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How do you pronounce the letter e?

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Ubutumwa 31

ururimi: English

OnionBoy (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 19 Nzero 2010 18:21:38

I have read several places where the letter e is always pronounced like the e in pen and I have read from several places where the letter e is always pronounced like the ay in day. Then I read somewhere else that the letter is pronounced like the e in pen unless the letter is at the end of a syllable, then it's pronounced like the ay in day.

Can somebody please help me? I don't know anybody who speaks Esperanto, personally, so I want to make sure I understand it properly.

~OnionBoy

erinja (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 19 Nzero 2010 20:24:12

It is always e like in pen.

You only get that "ay in day" sound with the letter combination "ej", which is pronounced just like "ay" in "day".

darkweasel (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 19 Nzero 2010 20:26:19

It's basically the sound in "pen". The sound in "day" is rendered in Esperanto as "ej".

However, you are free to pronounce "e" as a long vowel (I can't think of an English example for such a word - anyone else?) as long as you don't make it a diphthong "ej".

The safest way for an English speaker is probably to pronounce it as a short vowel as in "pen".

Renestl (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 01:37:02

darkweasel:
However, you are free to pronounce "e" as a long vowel (I can't think of an English example for such a word - anyone else?) as long as you don't make it a diphthong "ej".
Were you meaning long "e" like in "key"? If so, that's how I've been pronouncing my "i".

I'm with Onionboy in that I don't know anyone personally who speaks Esperanto, so I've been trying to mimick podcasts and such.

Rene

Oŝo-Jabe (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 01:46:35

When I first started learning Esperanto, I pronounced words like Araneo as Aranejo. Luckily I caught myself eventually. (Similarly, I used to pronounce "apud" with the accent on the wrong syllable.)

69UM24OSU12 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 03:36:42

In listening to spoken Esperanto, I have also noticed variations in the pronunciation of e. I think the most important thing for an English speaker, who tends to schwa the vowel sounds is that the "e" sound not be confused with "ej" or "a."

tipodesegnisto (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 04:08:54

We English speakers have a very difficult time with the sound of 'e', because we have very few pure vowel sounds in our language (if any?). The Esperanto 'e' is like the 'e' in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and 'é' (e aigu) in French. It is somewhere between the 'e' in 'pen' and 'a' in 'way', but it is NOT a diphthong, as in the latter. To hear it pronounced correctly, check out the radio station "Parolu, Mondo" from Brazil, or for even better pronunciation, "Pola Radio" from, of course, Poland, the birthplace of Esperanto. You can google for the webpages. When listening, pay close attention to how they pronounce the word "Esperanto", as it is easy to catch and has two 'e's in it. You will notice they do not sound like most English-speaking people when they say that word.

Practice makes perfect, as they say. I've been speaking Esperanto for many years, and have a decent accent in a few different languages. But I still have to practice getting the 'e' to sound right. It's perhaps the most difficult sound for us when speaking Esperanto; I only realized that recently when listening to other native English speakers. The other problem for speakers of both English and Portuguese, is the tendency to pronounce the 'a' of the '-as' ending as a schwa; but that is another story.

ceigered (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 11:53:39

I'm with Niko-tina, and Darkweasel.

If I understand Darkweasel, he's referring to the two "main" pure 'e' sounds (e and E in XSAMPA). /e/ is used in most Romance languages, in some Germanic languages (Swedish 'e'), and in other cases. It tends to be allophonic with /E/ (as in English, e.g. Australian English* "pen"), where it's in between) in many languages, but sometimes it's differentiated (e.g. Swedish "ä", which is /E/. but ). As a result, it can be hard to describe to a native American/British English speaker sometimes what the difference between these two seemingly pure e sounds are. Thus why some people say "ay" and others "pen". "ay" is wrong though, but it's used because the first part of that diphthong is similar to /e/ in most Romance languages. You're just better off using the "e" in pen ( /e/ ) though, not just in Esperanto. Especially if you're Australian - Our "ays" are much... stronger rido.gif (compare with Dutch "ij")

*don't confuse this with NZ English, especially when we're talking about e's!

@Tipodesegnisto:
We English speakers have a very difficult time with the sound of 'e', because we have very few pure vowel sounds in our language (if any?).
We do - I mean, how many people diphthongise "pen", "bed", "better", "father", "roger"? rido.gif And also I can't see the difference between how I say Esperanto and how Pola Radio say Esperanto (except they roll their R's so much better). Then again, we Aussies are meant to use a /e/ sound like in the french "laisser", but even then I can't tell the difference between the "pen" e in US English and the one in Aussie English except the US version sounds drawn ooooouuuuuuttttt - or is that the difference? One sounds more drony? Most voice recordings I can find (in English) showing the difference between the two E's use a diphthong for the /e/ (even Wikipedia I think has a diphthongised version of /e/)

darkweasel (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 15:03:46

"e" can go from a French è (more or less the sound in "pen") to a French é (something much "brighter"). The only important thing is not to pronounce it as "ej", or too close to any other vowel that exists in Esperanto.

Indeed, I use very diverse variations of "e" myself, depending on what's easier to pronounce in the concerned word.

It's similar with "o".

Roberto12 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Nzero 2010 18:31:48

What ceigered said.

I'd add that with the exception of the word veno ("a coming"), the much-loathed English vowel [EI] is actually okay for the Esperanto E, because there's no real possibility of confusion. I myself strive to say both [E] and [e], but if I lapse into [EI] with the latter, I don't worry about it.

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