ei and ee

I heard that ei and ee is the same in japanese. But what is the pronunciation for ei and ee? Some say that ei sound like the letter A in English while others say it is a long japanese E sound. So I'm very confused.

Hi,

the difference is relatively subtle and hard to tell you in English. Ei is more like a short "A" while Ee is closest to a long "A". If you hear it being used a few times, you'll come to understand the difference.

ええ ("ee," informal "yes") is clearly a long え (E) sound.

If you listen to words like えいご ("eigo," "English language"), えいかいわ ("eikaiwa," English language conversation"), the "ei" is a double consonant, sounding like the letter "A" in English. However, in conversations it is not pronounced as precisely "e-i" and might sound somewhat close to a long え sound.

Ohh, so in Japanese, the ei and ee are actually the same right? Also, that means that the ei sound like Japanese 'e' just longer?

No, they are not the same. えい is sometimes pronounced ええ for the same reason では is sometimes pronounced じゃ or ておく is pronounced とく.

No, Bryan (the same guest here again), they are distinctly different sounds. It's just that "ei" pronounced (as often happens) somewhat sloppily sounds close to "ee."

I see. So is ei more commonly pronunce like the long e or ei? Or does it depend on situation?

in the case of 英語,
the government put the furigana as えいご, eigo.
but, it was originally spoken as えーご.
thus, eigo and eego(long [e:]) could show the same word.
people start to speak that word as えいご,e-i-go, as exactly the same to the furigana. (furigana is a pronunciation of a kanji word.)
now, it is recognized that "eigo" is more polite than "[e:]go".

there are many examples, like 先生, 一郎, 警察, 平和, ,.

Ohh okay I see, thank you all very much. Sorry about having so many questions, thanks again!