How to pronounce the letter 'y'

Hello,

How do you pronounce the letter 'y' at the end of words such as happy and very? Do you pronounce the vowel as as in the word 'it'?

Englishuser

Not me. I pronounce it like the vowel sound in "neat."

Hi Tam Sadek and Grammar Geek,

As far as I know, Grammar Geek's pronunciation is by far the most common one. Tam Sadek's pronunciation is typical of URP.

Englishuser

Yeah, I do. Not happeeeeeee (like Whoopie!) where you really pull it out, but I don't wish people "Happih Birthday."

My daugther's name is Becky. When she was very tiny, she referred to herself as "key," taking the last part of her name the way she heard it said.

Remember, my pronunciation is American!

I think we're moving into the realm of allophones now, which isn't a bad place to go...

If we consider the word 'be', then there are at least two different pronunciations of 'be'.

The first being /bi/ as in "I'll be there at 8pm" versus the stronger form /biː/ as in "The verb 'to be' which is much stronger when compared to the first one. However, if you were making a promise to someone in the sentence 'I'll BE there at 8pm' then it would be the stronger form /biː/

Both are acceptable and I would agree that generally the 'y' in 'happy' does sound like the 'e' as in /bi/ (the weaker form).

On the other hand there are times when we deliberately exaggerate the 'y' sound at the end of 'happy' and sometimes we even see it written as 'happeeee!' to mimic it's exaggerated pronunciation.

I hope that helps...