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Sometimes in words which have the ɛ sound followed by an "r" as in "stair", "their" "bear", "where" I hear them pronounced like "steɪəɹ", ðeɪəɹ etc. with the "eɪ" as in "fake", "lake","make" and not with the ɛ as in "bed","fed", "let".

Do I hear it right?

Thank you in advance!

Gábor Kiss
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    Yes, that is right. – Inazuma Apr 02 '16 at 10:26
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    Presumably, you're talking about American English because you put an /ɹ/ in. In General American English, /eɪ/ and /ɛ/ have merged before /r/, so fairy and ferry are pronounced the same. Some Americans pronounce bear with /eɪ/ and some with /ɛ/. But I believe bearing is usually pronounced with /ɛ/. – Peter Shor Apr 02 '16 at 10:33
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    I'm American, and I don't pronounce fairy and ferry the same way. – Steven Littman Apr 02 '16 at 11:57
  • I've never heard stair (or stare) pronounced to rhyme with they're, or the common British pronunciation of mayor, if that is what the OP is asking. – Charl E Apr 02 '16 at 12:54
  • Me neither, but I could not think of an other IPA symbol to discribe how it sounds to me. It is like that in the case of "stair" the /eɪ/ lacks the "j" sound. – Gábor Kiss Apr 02 '16 at 14:06
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    @Steven Littman: Two-thirds of Americans pronounce them the same. Reference. But I definitely don't want to imply you're pronouncing them wrong; there are lots of American dialects that still have this distinction. – Peter Shor Apr 02 '16 at 15:10
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    And it's a distinction worth keeping. They are three words with three distinct meanings, and all of the vowel sounds that I use to distinguish Mary, marry and merry exist in English (as opposed to, let's say, the sound of u in deja vu (pronounced as it is in French). And it would be silly to say that John would marry Mary, but he wouldn't marry Merry, and have them sound like he would Mary Mary but he wouldn't Mary Mary. – Steven Littman Apr 03 '16 at 03:17
  • Could you tell me what's the difference between their pronouciation, please? – Gábor Kiss Apr 03 '16 at 08:15
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    The difference is covered in this question, although listening to the pronunciations in a British dictionary might help (unless you want the differences in an American dialect). – Peter Shor Apr 05 '16 at 14:30
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    @Steven: I've never had any problem with confusing merry, marry and Mary; they can almost always be disambiguated by context. Aaron and Erin, on the other hand ... – Peter Shor Apr 09 '16 at 23:46
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    I’m voting to close this question because it doesn't specify the accent/dialect in question. – alphabet May 29 '23 at 04:14

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