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Comment by tombh | Hacker News Reader

"Hey", /ˈheɪ/, has a dipthong /eɪ/, so é is precisely the first half of that dipthong. It may feel like it's between the “e” in “bet” and “ee” in “see”, but using the dipthong you don't have to guess it.

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Technically true, but this concept is foreign to English speakers. English relies heavily on diphthongs and can’t separate the sounds in their head. Simplest example is probably the word “no” which is very much a diphthong.

That’s why they always have such predictable accents in another language.

I've been speaking French since pre-school (albeit in North America mostly) and to me é always sounds more like the English short i (as in "tip"). I'm becoming increasingly convinced that everybody on Earth but me is wrong about it.

Do you happen to be from the western US or Canada? They tend to lower the /ɪ/ monophthong (i of tip, pit, sit, etc.) there, making it sound pretty close to /e/ (French é, German eh). It's one of those things that, combined with regionalisms and other accent features, give away where you grew up :) I noticed a lot of Londoners do this too, though this is just my experience.

Nope, Northeast. And my French teachers spoke with a Parisian accent.

No, you are correct.

Dr Geoff Lindsey on youtube:

short version: https://youtube.com/shorts/GF1gIaxnULc?si=d4jFC-rLOC5dww-8

long version: https://youtu.be/GNpbv7hJf6c?si=xNz1UjeLY0Ch9eDv&t=366

They're extremely close! /ɪ/ literally sits next to /e/ on the vowel chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_diagram#/media/File%3AIP...

Only if your accent is relatively close to General American or Standard Canadian :)

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