(ee) (ahy) Y and I Pronunciation

[Unregistered]

Hi, first of all, my first language is Portuguese.

Sometimes I don`t know how to pronounce some ''i'' and ''y'' sounds. I will give some examples:

Vehicle - Why (ee) and not (ahy) [Vehaycle]???
Improvise - Why (ahy) and not (ee) [Improveese]??

Now with ''y'':

Custody - Why (ee) and not (ahy) [Custodahy]??
Tylenol - Why (ahy) and not (ee) [Teelenol]??

I hope you understand my question and can explain me the rules of pronunciation of these words.

Thanks

[jlinger]

Generally (but, alas, not always) a vowel is given its long sound by adding a silent E.

The short sound of I is the one used in BIT. The long sound is the same as the word EYE.

Ve-hi-cle has no actual or implied silent E in the second syllable (the one with the I in it), so it's short.

Im-pro-vise has no silent E in the first sylable, so it's short. But there is a silent E in the last syllable, so it's a long I (EYE).

Final y in a poly-syllable word is always short (I think!). And it's always long in a single syllable word.
Custody, Happy, but Fly, By, Try, My

Tylenol is a brand name. They have no rules. That's just "the way it is"

If there is a silent e in the sylable (implied or actual, meaning it was once there but got dropped by conjugation with other word elements), then the Y is also long, pronounced as EYE. For example: Eye. Or the British Tyre.

Look at British. Two short I's. Even the shortform: Brit, still short I. If you added a silent e, it would be Brite (bright), with a long I. But then notice Bright itself! No silent E. Damn. There went "The Rule"!

There are plenty of other exceptions. For example, Microphone. It's a long EYE. And when you shorten the word to its common shortform, Mic, you still pronounce it "Mike" (and therefore it's even become an accepted spelling).

[konungursvia]

Final y usually corresponds to a French ending, pronounced /i/.

First syllable *y usually corresponds to an Anglo-saxon root, pronounced /aI/.

[minduser]

I`m sorry, but I still do not understand when to use ahy or ee.

Examples:

Microphone - Why ahy and not ee??

Item - Why ahy and not ee??

Is there any general rule for this words Y and I? This is one of the most common errors for Portuguese speakers.

[jlinger]

As I said, microphone is one of those exceptions. It probably WAS to be pronounced meecrofone, once, as most of those latin/greek words would use the short I sound, and it just morphed into a long I over time.

The I in Item is long because it's the only letter/sound in the first syllable: I-tem (if it were It-em it would be a short I). Irate (I-rate) vs Irritate (Ear-uh-tate)

[BobK]

The short answer: that's the way it is. There are very few reliable rules about pronunciation in English. (There are, for example, seven different ways of pronouncing '-ough' [in British English, that is].) The only way is to learn them; get a monolingual dictionary with IPA transcription, and use it.

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