Make the sound
Vowel grid reference: 4
This vowel is short.
►)    1   Relax your tongue and allow the tip to rest just behind your bottom front teeth.
,VD    2   Let the front of the tongue raise slightly as though it is heading for the roof of the mouth.
3   The tongue tip does not need to come up.
When do I use this sound?
ft
Spelling	Examples
e	red, yes
ea	spread, head
a	many, any
ie	friend
al	again
eo	leopard
ay	says
62
Work on your Accent DRESS
Now try it!
Say each of these words and sentences aloud. Then compare your pronunciation with the n model on tracks 95-97.
*   A    separate        bed mental men        depend       spend deadly
head many       anything        said        friend next attend
B    1   The wedding is next Wednesday and the headdress isn't ready yet. So yes, I'm stressed!
2 They went all the way to the shopping centre for the best bread in Essex.
3 Breakfast was excellent and Ben's belly felt very full. C Hedgehogs
As the name suggests, hedgehogs like to live in hedgerows where there's plenty of edible treats like berries and insects. If you're a nature fan there's never been a better time to explore the habitat of hedgehogs with the English summer getting warmer every year. Hedgehogs are easily recognizable because of their sharp spines, and in these they have an excellent form of defence - when they see a threat, they roll into a spiky ball.
Am I doing something wrong?
C   Opening your mouth too wide and making the same vowel sound in the words 'trap' and 'dress'.
f  Raise the front of your tongue slightly. Look in a mirror and compare the words 'head', 'hať. You should see movement in the lip shape and tongue position. Look on the Vowel positioning diagram (page 53) and compare the shapes of these vowels.
X   Making the same vowel sound in the words'hair'and'head'. If you are doing this then you are adding a small schwa sound after the /e/ and creating a diphthong (see page 78).
Use a mirror to check there is no movement in the lips and tongue when you make this sound. It may be easier to practise with words that have a plosive consonant (/p/, lb I, III, 161, /k/, /g/) at the end - these give more definite finishing points.
e.g.      head     bed     said dead
X   Making a different diphthong by adding a short /i/ vowel to the start (onglide) of this vowel sound.
if  Pick a short word with the /e/ sound (e.g.'bedO and, using a mirror, say each sound separately and work through the word.
e.g.    bed bed
/b/    /e/   161      Ibl   /e/ /d/
Make sure that the vowel sound /e/ is only one sound, not /ie/.
Now, put the word sounds back together but keep the vowel pure.