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¡¡¡¡Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today¡¯s tip is on how different vowel lengths are used to differentiate words ending in voiced and voiceless consonants.

¡¡¡¡Let¡¯s take an example. There¡¯s something in my eyes. There¡¯s something in my ice. The last words in the examples, eyes and ice differ in 2 ways. One difference is the word eyes end with the sound ¡°z¡±, and ice end with the sound ¡°s¡±. The other difference in the pronunciation of ¡°eyes¡± and ¡°ice¡± is how the vowel sound ¡°ai¡± is pronounced. In the word ¡°eyes¡±, it is longer. In the word ¡°ice¡±, it is very short.

¡¡¡¡Listen to the examples again, and note that the final consonant sound is not as clear as the difference in the length of the vowel. There¡¯s something in my eyes. There¡¯s something in my ice. Listen again. There¡¯s something in my eyes. There¡¯s something in my ice. Listen to some other examples of words that are identical except for the final consonants and the vowel length. Cap, cab, plate, played, seat, seed. Today¡¯s tip is to pay more attention to the length of vowels, as this difference is very important in distinguishing some words. Till then, tomorrow, to another tip on learning English.