AI Diphthong

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Understanding the AI diphthong: American English Pronunciation Diphthongs are two vowel sounds combined into one that create a single syllable. In other words, the starting point and the ending point in a diphthong are different, but they smoothly and quickly move into each other and we get one sound!

Today, we’re learning about the diphthong “ai”, which combines the vowel /a/ (another new sound that we don’t have as a monophthong) and the vowel /I/ (“ih”, the second vowel sound on the chart, as in the word “it”). Like with the diphthong “EI”, it sounds like “AI” ends with the first vowel sound (EE/EA), but that’s too “deep” and doesn’t quite sound right. As always, we’ll also look at common spelling patterns and do a tongue twister to help you master this new sound!

The /aɪ/ Sound This is the /aɪ/ Sound. /aɪ/ is a diphthong sound which means it is a combination of two vowel sounds that are pronounced within the same syllable.

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