How to pronounce Chie?

I have two pen-pals from Japan: Chi and Chie.

I thought you pronounce Chi like Ch-ee because I saw in a movie a young girl named that.

Is Chie pronounced the same as Chi?

No, the two vowels are pronounced separately. It's a bit hard to express the sound phonetically in English, but something like Chee-eh, without lengthening either of the vowels too much.

The Chi is pronounced like "chips" without the "ps" and "e" is pronounced like the "e" in "elephant". Then just put them together so you don't have a pause between the two sounds.

The Chi is pronounced like "chips" without the "ps" and "e" is pronounced like the "e" in "elephant". Then just put them together so you don't have a pause between the two sounds.

I'm afraid that this description leads to an incorrect pronunciation (short vowel vs long vowel pronunciation). "Chi" is pronounced more like the "chee" in "cheese", while the "e" is more like the "ay" in "hay" or the homophonous pronunciation of "a".

yllwsmrf: But Chee from cheese would be written as ちい perhaps, whereas the name would be ちえ (maybe I am wrong) thus making it a short "chi" sound rather than longer. Unless the name is written ちいえ of course (I have only come across one Chie which was written ちえ).

Unless you are an Australian, the "i" sound in chips is a vowel that doesn't exist in Japanese. The sound in Chie is far closer to the ee in cheese, without lengthening.

The pronunciation a lot of Australians give the "i" in cheese is probably very close to the Japanese "i" though- you aren't Australian by any chance, Smoke?

Yes Sira I am Aussie so that's where the difference must come from. The ee in cheese sounds so long to me and could not possibly said to be the pronunciation of ち. It would be like pronouncing ちず like cheezu rather than chizu (to me anyway).

Sorry Smoke, didn't realize the pronunciations were so different. Well, I it doesn't hurt to have both explanations since we don't know where the OP is coming from.

Smoke, I thought you must be. it's only really Australians who pronounce the "i" in chips that way- think of the Aussie/ Kiwi cheeps vs. chups (both equal chips) thing that people always come out with. In any case, the vowel in cheese is still the same as the vowel in Chie, but as I said, in Chie it's not lengthened like it is in cheese. In the international phonetic alphabet both would be written using the same symbol, but with a lengthening symbol after the "i" sound. Lots of vowels have long and short versions, that's one of them.