English phoneme
long e
/iː/
Quick articulation guide
Smile slightly, keep your lips unrounded, raise the front of your tongue very high near the roof of your mouth, and voice a long clear "ee" sound.
How to produce this sound
Start with the jaw only slightly open. This is not a wide-open vowel. The mouth opening is small because the tongue has to sit very high in the mouth.
Move the tongue forward, toward the front of the mouth, but do not let it touch the teeth, the alveolar ridge, or the hard palate. The highest part of the tongue should be the front body of the tongue, raised close to the hard palate.
Keep the tip of the tongue relaxed. It can rest behind the lower front teeth or hover low in the front of the mouth. The tip is not doing the main work here; the important part is the front-middle body of the tongue lifting upward and forward.
The lips should be spread slightly or neutral, never rounded. A light "smile" shape can help, but it should be subtle.
Turn on the voice from the start. /iː/ is a voiced vowel, so the vocal folds vibrate continuously while the air flows out steadily. There is no burst, no stop, and no friction.
In careful pronunciation, aim for a sound that feels tense, high, and bright. Compared with /ɪ/ as in sit, /iː/ is usually higher, fronter, more tense, and typically longer in teaching descriptions of English vowels.
A practical sequence is:
- Relax the jaw.
- Slightly spread the lips.
- Lift the front of the tongue very high.
- Keep a tiny open channel under the palate.
- Voice smoothly and hold the vowel.