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Hello and welcome back to Easy English with James! Today we're going to have a
look at the letter 'e'. This is a special letter because it's the most common
letter in all of English and there are more ways to pronounce the letter e than
there are ways to pronounce any other letter in English, so if you want to know
exactly how to pronounce this letter and you want to master your pronunciation
stick with me as we learn all about the letter E!
[Music]
okay so the letter e it's a vowel letter the vowels in english are a e i o and u
the letter e is the second vowel letter in english after the letter a if you
want to learn more about the letter a check out my video up here okay the
letter e is a vowel letter that is actually the most common letter in all
of english so it's super important maybe the most important letter for you to
learn actually in english 13 or 14 percent
between 13 and 14 of all english writing
is just the letter e that means if you read a book or a newspaper
13 of the letters is just the letter e okay it's the
letter e is everywhere nearly every word in english contains a letter e okay it's
really really important so how many ways do you think there are to
pronounce this letter have a think and today we're going to go
through all of those different ways and i'll give you advice on your
pronunciation we'll talk about some vocabulary that you can use some really
long words some crazy words and hopefully by the end of this lesson
you'll know all of the different ways to pronounce this and we'll have a little
test at the end okay so let's start with number one
okay so number one nice and easy to start with
the letter e obviously can be pronounced
e this is how it is pronounced in the
alphabet a b c d e e
we make this sound watch closely e
e your lips widen a little bit and your tongue sort of hovers
e e
e sometimes people call this the long e but don't always use that because it
doesn't have to be very very long it can be e e e okay but the important thing is
that your mouth gets wide e e
e we find this in really common words it's
very important because it's found in super common words like he
or she or we
or me
and also the verb to be
okay practice with me he she
we me
and to be
to be okay if you want to practice that better
or faster try going through all of them he she we me
he she we me he she we me okay and you'll get that
sound really really natural really really natural okay we can also
pronounce the letter e as e in words where it is a stressed syllable
so take a look at the word female
female okay female the stressed syllable is the first part
of that word fee and you can see the letter e there
that's the stressed part e so often in many words in english when
the e is the stressed part we pronounce it e
take a look at evening
evening evening
okay and female and even secret
secret okay female
secret evening
in those words one syllable is stressed the syllable with the letter e at the
beginning is stressed so we pronounce it e be careful because there are many
exceptions to this rule but in many words when the e is stressed we
pronounce it e okay you'll also find this
pronunciation of the letter e in words like chinese or vietnamese or japanese
okay e-s-e any word with e-s-e that e-s-e is
pronounced ease ease okay this is because of something
called magic e
don't worry magic e we're going to look at at the end of today's lesson but for
now look at words like theme and you can also see they have e then a
consonant and then another e that final e is called magic e okay and that's one
of the reasons why we pronounce these e japanese
chinese okay vietnamese
and theme and scene
okay practice those words we also pronounce the letter e as e in
greek words that means words in english that come from the ancient greek
language okay words like hercules you know the really famous
strong man hercules hercules okay but also plurals of greek words so the
single word oasis if you change that to the plural which
means many of you just add es oases same with crisis becomes crises and
thesis becomes theses okay that es on the end of words here is always
pronounced ease ease because they're taken from greek
okay so practice hercules
hercules and
feces and
crises and oases also we often pronounce the letter e as
e in words where it appears next to an a so the letters e a together if you look
at words like jeans
genes or meat meet
meet or even teacher
teacher teacher teach okay and
reach that ea here together is pronounced as
the e e okay so practice with me
teacher teach
jeans a nice pair of jeans and
meat meat
okay this is the same when we have two letter
e's together e e in words like free everybody loves free stuff right free
and agree agree
and the animal b okay the buzzing b
b agree and
free so when you see words with two e's together it's normally pronounced long e
sound e agree
be and free sometimes when you see the letters e and
i together e and then i in words like protein protein
sealing sealing and
receipt receipt okay when you go to buy
something you will get a receipt the e before the i is sometimes not always be
careful because there are many exceptions sometimes e before i is also
pronounced e in english e the best way to learn this is to listen to each new
word okay ask a native speaker or look up on an online dictionary for the sound
of each word when you learn it so you know is this e i pronounced e or not
okay so protein ceiling
and receipt
receipt okay also we can turn it around instead
of the e before the i we can put the i before the e
and that combination of letters is also pronounced
e in words like peace
peace and
briefcase briefcase when you go to work you carry
a briefcase also in the word believe believe you'll see the final syllable
there leave is iev so ieve believe believe okay so
e before i can be pronounced sometimes e and also i before e can sometimes be
pronounced e2 okay believe peace and briefcase
finally there are some special words in english where e is at the end of the
word and it's pronounced e usually they're words that are borrowed from
other languages especially japanese so words like karate
karate or karaoke karaoke both of those end in e
but they're borrowed from another language so we put the e at the end as a
e e sound okay practice again karaoke
karaoke and karate karate
okay so let's try some practice sentences with this
pronunciation of the letter e she is free to believe there is a bee
on the ceiling she is free to believe there is a bee on
the ceiling practice with me she is free to believe there is a bee on
the ceiling your turn
okay she is free to believe there is a bee on the ceiling you'll see all of the
different spellings in that sentence and hopefully the more you practice that
sentence you'll be able to get a good feel for when we pronounce the letter e
as e okay you can also try this sentence we see chinese genes on the beach
we see chinese jeans on the beach okay practice with me we see chinese jeans on
the beach your turn
okay well done let's have a look at the next way that we can pronounce this
letter okay the next way that we can pronounce
the letter e in english is as an e e
watch closely my jaw goes down e e
you'll know this from words like egg okay
this one is really simple to remember the letter e is pronounced er very often
in words that end in the letter e and then a consonant so look at the word get
you've got the letter e and then a consonant
the word met or bet or set or even longer words like hotel
hotel they all have the letter e followed by a consonant at the end of a
word okay there are exceptions to this rule too of course in english but
a good rule to remember is that if you see the letter e followed by a consonant
and it's at the end of a word especially short words like bet met set and let
it's usually pronounced
practice with me hotel hotel
get get
set set
and met
met okay well done
you'll also see the letter e pronounced air in words where you see the letter e
followed by a consonant and then another vowel so look at the word exit
exit you've got the letter e then you've got a consonant x and then you've got
another vowel i okay exit look at the word never
or ever
or level okay all of these words have the
letter e followed by a consonant followed by another vowel sometimes it's
another e like in never or ever or level okay
when you see that often in english it's pronounced e e
never level okay ever well done
also you'll find this in words where the letter e is followed by th okay things
like weather as in whether it rains