元音的对立

The difference is not length. i keeps the tongue high and the lips spread and tense; ɪ lets the tongue drop and the mouth go slack. Say sheep tight, then loosen everything for ship. A Japanese イ is tenser than ɪ, so ship keeps coming out as sheep until you relax it.

The same pair, quicker. seat holds the tense vowel; sit relaxes it, and comes out shorter as a by-product, not as the point.

bean is the tense one. If the two sound the same, it is ɪ that has gone missing - let the jaw fall a little for bin.

æ opens wider and lower than ɛ, the jaw dropped and the sound spread flat, halfway to ah. bad is not bed said louder. Neither vowel is Japanese, and both tend to collapse into エ - so open bad further than feels right.

pan drops the jaw; pen keeps it half-closed. The vowel of pan is the harder one - push it more open than you think it needs.

Only the vowel tells them apart, and here it also tells one man from many. men sits higher and tighter; man drops lower and wider.

æ is a front vowel, bright and spread under a wide smile; ʌ is central and dull, the mouth at rest in the middle. cat sits forward, cut sits in the centre. Both reach a Japanese ear as ア, which is why they merge - one forward and flat, the other central and slack.

but is the relaxed central one - the mouth does almost nothing. bat pushes the sound forward and spreads the lips.

run rests in the middle of the mouth; ran brings the vowel forward and flattens it. Past and present part on the vowel alone.

ɑ opens the mouth wide with the tongue low and back; ʌ keeps it half-open and central. not drops the jaw all the way, nut only halfway. In American English the o of not is this wide, unrounded ɑ - do not round the lips for it.

lock opens wide and low; luck stays central and short. Again, keep the lips unrounded for lock - American ɑ has no lip-rounding at all.

u pushes the lips into a tight round and holds; ʊ rounds them loosely and lets go. fool is long and pursed, full short and slack. A Japanese ウ has almost no rounding, so both drift towards it - purse hard for fool, and keep ʊ loose but still pulled back.

pool purses the lips and holds them there; pull loosens them at once. Here the lips do the work, not the length.

ɪ sits higher and tighter, ɛ a step lower and more open. pin keeps the tongue high; pen drops it. Some American speakers merge these before n, but the vowels themselves are distinct - keep pin above pen.

ten opens a little lower than tin. A small move, but the vowel is the only thing keeping the two apart.