Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast. My name is Mandy, and this is our 37th episode. I hope you enjoyed last week's word, palpable. This week, I've chosen two high-frequency

words that I often hear mispronounced. Most of my students that say these words incorrectly

never noticed that Americans ever pronounced them any other way.

The words are says and said.

The words says and said are not pronounced with a long A sound,

even though they are spelled the way the long A is usually spelled with an A-Y and an A-I.

Remember, the long-A sounds like the letter name. So long A sounds like,

A. The word say, S-A-Y, is pronounced with a long A.

Can you hear it?

Say.

The words says and said are pronounced with a short e sound. If you remember from way back in episode

nine, the key word for the short e sound, eh, is bed. B, e, ed, bed. Notice that the word B-E-D B-E-D BED

Notice that the word said

S-A-I-D

rhymes with bed

Said bed

Repeat those two words after me

said bed BED BED Repeat those two words after me.

Said bed.

If you pronounce S-A-I-D with a long A, it will sound like you are saying S-A-E-D, S-A-Y-E-D. Saying S-A-Y-E-D.

Saying S-A-Y-E-D will just sound like bad grammar.

S-A-Y-S sounds like says, not say's.

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