American English Phonetics

6.3.3 GA /eɪ/

GA /eɪ/ begins with a half-close, front, unrounded vowel, in which the blade of the tongue is raised to a point halfway between the hard palate and the bottom of the mouth. Pull the lips back. As you produce this sound your tongue should glide upward and forward to a point just below the relative tongue height for /ɪ/. Like all tense vowels, /eɪ/ is phonemically long.

Some examples of words containing /eɪ/ (note spellings):
• late, ache, nation, potato, patriot, behave
• rain, mail, raise, praise, straight
• pay, May
• steak, break
• obey, weigh (unusual spelling)