Tristan Mc Leay wrote:
You find the "i" in "bit" hard to distinguish from the "ee" in "beet"?No, not at all. But the 'ee' in 'beet' is a diphthong IMD (starting from something like [@] and ending atsomewhere like [i]).
I don't find "ee" a dipthong at all. For me (NYC accent?) it's a pure vowel. -- "This historic ground in New Mexico, scene of the first atomic explosion on earth...gave the most effective answer today to Japanese propaganda that radiations were responsible for deaths even after the day of the explosion, Aug. 6, and that persons entering Hiroshima had contracted mysterious maladies due to persistent radioactivity." -- NY Times, 12 Sep 45