ꜰᴀᴄᴇ vowel phoneme /eɪ/

The ꜰᴀᴄᴇ vowel phoneme /eɪ/ is an English vowel phoneme consisting of the vowel sound used by English speakers in its keyword face.

Phonotactics

This can start or end words.

Pronunciation

In both RP and GenAm, the diphthongal nucleus is a mid-front vowel sound [e], and the diphthongal glide is a near-close near-front unrounded vowel [ɪ].

Spelling

Words within the ꜰᴀᴄᴇ lexical set are pronounced with this phoneme.

Spelling is ⟨a-e⟩, ⟨ea⟩ in break, steak, ⟨eigh⟩, eight, ⟨ey⟩, ⟨ay⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨et⟩‎, ⟨ez⟩ , ⟨ale⟩ ‎, ⟨eil⟩, ‎⟨ais⟩.

Typical pronunciation difficulties

Spanish

While /eɪ/ is virtually the same as the Spanish diphthong "ei,” many Spanish speakers have difficulty remembering that the most common spelling for this sound is "a.” For example, the movie The Matrix /ˈmeɪtrɪks/ was released as Matrix in most of the world, and the pronunciation used when speaking Spanish is [ˈmatrɪks]. Similarly, catering /ˈkeɪtərɪŋ/ is [ˈkaterin] in Spanish, and sometimes it is even spelled “cáterin.”