How to Pronounce the /ɛ/ Sound

Explore the /ɛ/ sound, crucial for distinguishing words. Learn how to produce and recognize this sound to improve your pronunciation and listening skills.

In this lesson, we are going to learn how the sound /ɛ/ is produced by looking at the articulatory organs.

What Type of Sound Is /ɛ/?

/ɛ/ is similar to /e/ but always shorter. In other words, it is between /æ/ and /e/. Notice that /ɛ/ is mainly found in some dialects of English and mostly in General American English that is based on a Bostonian accent. Therefore, if you see any examples of this lesson with the sound /e/ instead of /ɛ/, that is accepted too.

How to Produce /ɛ/?

Mouth Configuration for /ɛ/

To produce it, open your mouth like /e/, and stretch out your lips a little bit like /ɪ/. It is produced when the mouth is half-open and lips are unrounded, the jaw is then lowered a bit. As you can see in the picture, the mouth is wider than when we produce the /e/ sound, but the lips are not as stretched as when we want to pronounce the /ɪ/ sound.

Which Letters are Pronounced as /ɛ/?

The sound /ɛ/ is represented by the following letters:

Pie Chart of the Letters that Make the /ɛ/ Sound

bed /bɛd/

red /rɛd/

aware /əˈwɛɚ/

secretary /ˈsɛk.ɹəˌtɛɹ.i/

dead /dɛd/

breath /brɛθ/

said /sɛd/

against /əˈɡɛnst/

/ɛ/ Around the World

As you see in the table below, most of the common languages around the world have this sound; therefore you will not have any difficulty producing it. And if the sound does not exist in your language, do not worry. With a little practice you will be able to produce it.

	Existence	Example
Mandarin	✔	言 (yán)
Spanish	x	-
Hindi	✔	रहना
Bengali	x	-
Portuguese	✔	meta
Russian	✔	жест
Japanese	x	-
Vietnamese	✔	xe
Turkish	x	-
French	✔	baie
German	✔	Ende
Italian	✔	etto
Persian	x	-
Standard Arabic	x	-
Korean	✔	개구리
Indonesian	✔	pek
Filipino	✔	heto
Hungarian	✔	ez
Dutch	✔	bed
Polish	✔	krem
Romanian	x	-
*Swedish	✔	fett
Czech	✔	let
Greek	x	-
Ukrainian	✔	день
Urdu	✔	رہنا

*Sweden Swedish has this sound.

Listening

Let's listen to the pronunciation of the /ɛ/ sound which has been mentioned below:

Down below, there are two other sounds similar to the /ɛ/ sound. At first, listen to the /e/ sound and then listen to the /ɪ/ sound:

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What Type of Sound Is /ɛ/?
How to Produce /ɛ/?
Which Letters are Pronounced as /ɛ/?
/ɛ/ Around the World
Listening

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