How are SOLACE, SURFACE, PREFACE, PALACE, FURNACE, and MENACE pronounced?

The appearance of the short vowel /ɪ/ in all these words

When I teach English pronunciation, I teach it by studying the behavior of many words and grouping them. This has been my way of teaching English pronunciation and I can confidently say that it is the most effective way to learn how many words are pronounced.

Since I started writing this newsletter in April, this has been my way of explaining and simplifying English pronunciation, even to very beginners. And I’ve written on (1) The silent letter t in debut, sachet, depot, chalet, rapport, ballet, bouquet, mortgage, (2) How are words that end in -age pronounced?, (3) How to pronounce words that end in -or, -er, -ious, and -cally, (4) Of viVAcious, hiLArious, saGAcious, faLLAcious and others, (5) Pronouncing some ch-words in English the French way and a lot more.

The interesting thing about my writing this way is that it makes learners of English understand that language is such an organized system of making sense of things and even the world.

If you look at the picture above very closely, you’ll discover that there is also a pattern (that of the letters -ace) here that works for surface, solace, preface, palace, furnace, menace /menis/, and perhaps more words. There is a presence of the short vowel /ɪ/ in all these words, never the diphthong /eɪ/.

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Yours in English,

Francis