The sounds in "heed" and "hid"

We make the sound in "heed" (/i/) with our tongue very close to the top of our mouth. We also spread our lips so it looks like we are smiling.
You can see how Laurie looks like she is smiling when she says /i/ in the picture.

Here is a video clip of this same vowel sound. Notice how the speaker looks like she is smiling when she says 'read.' (These videos will launch a separate video viewer to play them. Make sure you have a plug-in for video clips.)

• 'read' video clip (300 K MPEG file)
  

When we make the sound in "hid" (/I/), we don't look as much like we are smiling, and our tongues are lower in our mouths. Here is a picture of our mouths so that you can compare where the tongue is for these two sounds.

Now let's listen to some sounds!

/i/ sounds:	/I/ sounds:
meat sheep leak	mitt ship lick

source: soundsofenglish.org