Beer or bear? The diphthongs /ɪə/ and /eə/ in English

Welcome back to season 4 of English Sound Building! Today, we’re picking back up on the /ɪ/ and /e/ sounds from last week, and seeing how they behave in two schwa diphthongs: /ɪə/ and /eə/. We’ll look at the sounds individually, in common words, and in sentences. 

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Transcript

Today we’re picking back up on the short /ɪ/ and /e/ from last week, and looking at how they behave in two schwa diphthongs, /ɪə/ and /eə/.

We haven’t talked a lot about diphthongs yet: so far, we’ve only looked at /əʊ/, which we first saw way back in season one, episode 9 “Go, go, go!”, and we came back to with that listener request in season three, episode 28, in contrast with /ɒ/, “Gotta go”.

You may remember from that episode that a diphthong is basically a place where two vowel sounds combine to make one fluid sound. Unlike the short and long vowels, in diphthongs your mouth moves during the sound, to move from the start place to the end place. Those start and end places are pretty obvious from the symbol for the sound. So, with /eə/, for example, we’re starting with that short, open /e/, and relaxing the mouth to that neutral schwa position /ə/. Try it with me, slowly at first, and then faster. 

I find both of today’s diphthongs interesting for different reasons. Let’s start with /ɪə/, and there’s a reason why I didn’t ask you to make this one starting at /ɪ/ and moving to /ə/, which is that most modern British English speakers, including me, don’t actually make the sound exactly in this way! Listen to me pronouncing it as I normally would. Do you hear the /j/ between the two sounds? That shouldn’t strictly be there! I find it very hard to read as a diphthong without placing that /j/ between the sounds, let’s try /ɪə/, but if you go back and listen to received pronunciation from 50 years ago or more, you’ll hear how the sound has changed. So, /ɪə/ is an interesting diphthong because it isn’t strictly one… to give an accurate transcription of the sound most people now make we see either long /i:/ followed by schwa, or followed by /j/ and schwa. Strictly speaking here, these two vowels give two syllables, but that’s something which is under debate by linguists. In language teaching we still transcribe as the diphthong symbol and consider as one syllable, so that’s what we’ll do today. And, the good news is that most people tend to be able to make this /ɪə/ sound, with the /j/, pretty well. 

/eə/ is pronounced as a diphthong by most speakers, and this is the one my learners tend to have more difficulty with, particularly where spelling patterns leave ambiguity as to which sound would be produced. For example, the things you hear with are your ears. “Hear” and “ear” have an ‘ear’ spelling pattern. So, it is understandable that errors like “We often see bears in the woods” (beer)! It’s even worse where words are written the same but pronounced differently, like the thing that falls from your eye when you cry (tear) or to rip a piece of paper (tear). The silent (in English from England) ‘r’ at the end of many /eə/ words can also be tricky, if that’s something you’re trying to emulate: absolutely fine of course if you’re not: that letter ‘r’ isn’t silent in many British or World accents. 

Right, I’ve talked a lot – let’s start by practising some common – and, as they’re relatively rare sounds, less common – words with each sound. We’ll start with /ɪə/. There are two in some of these if you listen closely!

1. atmosphere
2. career
3. clear
4. engineer
5. experience 
6. gear
7. idea
8. industrial
9. interfere
10. interior
11.  jeer
12.  material
13.  meerkat
14.  near 
15.  period
16.  queer
17.  real 
18.  seal
19.  serious
20.  severe 
21.  squeal
22.  theatre
23.  volunteer
24.  weird

…And some sentences with some of those words:

• It was clearly the serious engineer’s idea.
• There was a weird atmosphere in the theatre’s interior.
• There is real industrial material near here.
• Volunteering experience led to her real career.

Now let’s move onto some words with /eə/.

1. aeroplane
2. affair
3. anywhere
4. care
5. dairy
6. downstairs
7. flair/ flare
8. hairy
9. hilarious
10. librarian
11. millionaire
12. parent
13. prayer
14. prepare
15. repair
16. scare
17. somewhere
18. square
19. swear
20. there/ their/ they’re
21. unbearable
22. underwear
23. various
24. vegetarian

…And some sentences with some of those words:

• The hilarious hairy librarian is downstairs.
• They are unprepared to care for their parents.
• The affair involved various millionaires.
• Don’t swear anywhere in the square!
   

Finally, let’s look at some minimal pairs with /ɪə/ and /eə/

1. beer            – bear/ bare
2. cheers         - chairs
3. dear/ deer    – dare
4. ear              – air
5. fear             – fair/ fare
6. hear/ here    – hair/ hare

1. leer             – lair
2. mere           – mare
3. peer/ pier    – pear/ pair
4. rear            – rare
5. shear/ sheer – share

1. spear          - spare
2. steer           – stair/ stare
3. tear/ tier      – tear
4. weir/ we’re   – where/ wear
5. year            – yeah

And finally some sentences with some of those minimal pairs. As always, see if you can make more during your own practice.

• I’m sorry, I can’t hear you here with my hair over my ears.
• They have a spare spear for those who dare hunt deer.
• They feared the bears but fared better after beer.