IPA reference · vowel
ɛ — open-mid front unrounded vowel
A more open front vowel than /e/ — the vowel of "bed".
How to make the open-mid front unrounded vowel
Drop the jaw noticeably from the /e/ position.
English reference points: bed, get. If you speak English natively you already produce this sound — the work is recognising it and placing it where the target language wants it.
Languages that use it
Sounds it gets confused with
Most pronunciation errors are not random — they are a substitution of the nearest sound the speaker already owns. These are the usual substitutions for ɛ, and each one is a minimal-pair drill waiting to happen.
Phonemic in Italian, French, Portuguese and Bambara.
What this means for learners
Italian *pesca* means peach with /ɛ/ and fishing with /e/ — the same spelling, two words.
Teaching this sound
Describing a sound in words gets a student roughly half the way there. The other half is hearing it produced correctly, immediately after producing it incorrectly, with both versions available to replay. That is the argument for recording during the lesson rather than after it: the student leaves with your model of ɛ attached to the actual words they got wrong, not to an abstract chart.
Frequently asked questions
What sound does the IPA symbol ɛ make?
ɛ is the open-mid front unrounded vowel. A more open front vowel than /e/ — the vowel of "bed". In English you can hear it in: bed, get.
How do you pronounce ɛ?
Drop the jaw noticeably from the /e/ position.
Which languages have the open-mid front unrounded vowel?
Among the languages covered here: French (père, “father”); Italian (pesca, “peach”); Bambara (bɛ, “is”).
What is the difference between ɛ and e?
Phonemic in Italian, French, Portuguese and Bambara.