How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

The vowel sound ɑɪ of "Right" is slightly different from that of "Buy", I wonder how do we distinguish their sound difference of ɑɪ when using phonetics symbol.

Re: How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

The differences, mainly in length, are so slight that few except phoneticians are even aware that it exists. In phonemic transcription, the vowel sounds of both right and buy are the same -/ aɪ/. In broad phonetic transcription the vowel of the former can be transcribed as /aːɪ/, and of the latter /aɪ/. The symbols used in narrow transcription will depend on the sounds produced by the individual speaker.

Re: How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

The vowel sound of Right is shorter, Buy is longer but both use /aɪ/ in IPA expression

Re: How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

worldeng said:

The vowel sound of Right is shorter, Buy is longer but both use /aɪ/ in IPA expression

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We use /aɪ/ for both in phonemic transcription.

Re: How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

The vowels in both words 'right' and 'buy' are the same /ɑɪ/ and to my ears sound exactly the same. My tip is to not overthink tiny details of sound.
If these words sound as if they have different vowels to you, then perhaps in your accent they do contain different vowels. Notice that the spellings of these words are very different, which could lead your eye/ear to think the pronunciation ought to be different.

Re: How to distinguish the vowel sound between "Right" and "Buy" in phonetics symbol?

jadeJ said:

The vowels in both words 'right' and 'buy' are the same /ɑɪ/ and to my ears sound exactly the same. My tip is to not overthink tiny details of sound.
If these words sound as if they have different vowels to you, then perhaps in your accent they do contain different vowels. Notice that the spellings of these words are very different, which could lead your eye/ear to think the pronunciation ought to be different.

Click to expand...

In American English, they're slightly different. Buy rhymes with eye. They start with a more open-mouthed ah sound and diphthong into an ee.

The i in right is, well, tighter, more closed-mouthed. It starts with more of an eh sound and go to the ee.

But I don't know how you'd write either one phonetically.