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Difficulty: EasyDiphthongs

Complete the sentence below by identifying which of the following words—pear, tier, heart, heard—contains the diphthong sound /ɪə/.

Answer:The word containing the diphthong sound /ɪə/ is 【tier】.

Answer

The word containing the diphthong sound /ɪə/ is tier.
The word 'tier' is pronounced /tɪə/, which contains the centring diphthong /ɪə/ gliding from the close front vowel position to the central schwa position.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the phonetic transcription of the target sound /ɪə/ and each word choice.
The target sound /ɪə/ is a centring diphthong heard in words like 'ear', 'near', and 'tier' (/tɪə/).
Identifying the correct vowel glide requires transcribing the vowel sound in each candidate word.
2
Compare the vowel sounds of the remaining options to the target diphthong /ɪə/.
'Pear' is pronounced /peə/ (diphthong /eə/), 'heart' is pronounced /hɑːt/ (monophthong /ɑː/), and 'heard' is pronounced /hɜːd/ (monophthong /ɜː/).
Distinguishing pure monophthongs and alternative diphthongs eliminates non-matching words.

Key Concept

Phonetic identification of centring diphthongs (/ɪə/ vs /eə/ and monophthongs)
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Topics

Diphthongs

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