Back to Minimal Pairs Exercises

Listening discrimination: Bit versus Bet

Listen for the difference between the vowel in bit /ɪ/ and the vowel in bet /e/. Use your recordings to practise, compare and test yourself.

Stage 1: Meet the words

Listen to each word and look at its spelling. You can replay it at normal speed or more slowly. Use Compare pair to hear both words one after the other.

Pair 1 of 20
Word 1
bit

Word 2
bet

Choose a playback button to listen.

Pair 1 of 20

Teacher's note

The HTML expects the recordings to be in a folder named sounds beside this file. Filenames must match the list in the code. “Play slowly” uses slower playback of the same recording; it may slightly change the sound quality.

The first sound is shown as /ɪ/, inferred from the first word bit, because no first phoneme was supplied. The second sound is /e/ as in bet. Record each distinct word once and save it using the filename list below.