Good question, Diana. It is because the word ending -ine is usually not accented, and the vowels in an unaccented syllable often take on a short /uh/ or /ih/ sound. This is called a schwa sound, and we explain it in our How to Teach Schwas blog post.

The word ending -ine almost always say that short i sound when it is not the accented syllable in a word (examine, imagine, engine, medicine, etc.). When -ine is in an accented syllable, it says the long i sound that we expect (line, combine, outshine, lupine, etc.). And interestingly, words that come to English from French that end in -ine have a long e sound (magazine, chlorine, machine, cuisine, etc.).

I hope this helps!

Good questions, Qais. The concepts of open and closed syllables, as well as the other four syllable types, are extremely useful for helping students read and spell English words. However, there are things that come into play with pronunciation, such as the schwa sound. Our How to Teach Schwas blog post has more information about these. What you are hearing with the first and last syllable of banana and with the first syllable of tomato is the schwa sound of unaccented syllables.

The concept of open and closed syllables can help with sounding out words but may not help with the subtly differences in pronunciation, especially across accents. Banana would be bay-nan-ay (long A, short A, long A), but of course that doesn’t sound exactly like the way most people pronounce the word. As explained in the Schwa blog post, after sounding out bay-nan-ay, students would then need to “say it like word”, banana.

Friedrich,
Interesting thoughts. However, the schwa sound can be found in any type of unaccented syllable, not only open syllables (above) but also closed syllables even when followed by only one conconsant (problem). It can also be found in other syllable types as well, such as a vowel team syllable (limousine). Maybe our How to Teach Schwas blog post will help you.

As for syllable division, there are two ways to divide syllables. One is according to morphology, or word meaning, and the other is according to pronunciation. Sometimes the divisions are the same, and sometimes the divisions are not.

If you think of the word “mended,” you can hear this fairly clearly. According to morphology, we would divide this into a base word and a suffix: mend-ed. But according to pronunciation, we would divide it men-ded. With many words, it’s difficult to come to a full stop after a consonant blend. Try to say mend-ed fast. In the natural rhythm of our speech, it’s much easier to divide the word in the middle of a consonant blend and say men-ded.

It is similar for accountability. In normal speech, we naturally prefer to start syllables with a consonant sound rather than end them with one. So when there is just one consonant sound between two vowels, we very often move the consonant to the second vowel. Ac-count-a-bil-i-TY instead of ac-count-a-bil-IT-y But when dividing for spelling purposes, we see that -ity is a suffix and the morphology of suffixes has us add it all to the end. In this case, accountable becomes accountability with the silent E dropped because -ity is a vowel suffix and we drop the silent E before adding vowel suffixes (except with rare exceptions). So, for spelling the word, we would focus the student on locating the base word, account. Then add the first suffix, accountable. Then the second suffix, accountability.

This blog post is just a brief overview of open and closed sylable types. All About Reading and especially All About Spelling cover these in much more detail. Students are taught that if there is one consonant between two vowels that the consonant usually goes with the second vowel. But if that doesn’t form a recognizable word, then they should try dividing the word so that the consonant goes with the first vowel. So robot is divided ro-bot. This makes the first syllabe open with a long O and robot is recognizable. However, cabin becomes ca-bin, or CAY-bin, which isn’t a word. So students will then move the division to cab-in and find that with a short A it is recognizable.

But again, this is just a short summary. There are many six syllable types and multiple syllabe division rules to apply. All About Reading and All About Spelling both need multiple levels to full teach, review, and practice these concepts with students.

I hope this clears up the issues at least somewhat for you.