If your answer is no, you got it right. Here are the transcriptions of these two words.

EXHIBIT /ɪɡˈzɪbɪt/

EXHIBITION /ˌeksɪˈbɪʃn/

When I first started learning about phonetics, I realised that one of the areas I needed to improve was the pronunciation of the letter “e” + consonant at the beginning of words. I couldn’t find any patterns so I ended up using a very old-school method.

Dictionary in hand, I created columns by grouping the words beginning with “e” that shared the same beginning sound. I recently came across that old notebook while tidying up and I thought to myself, This could be useful for my students!

So I made the word clouds below grouping some of these words based on the first sound.

As a side note, I’d like to add that I never really got around to studying the list but this activity alone, writing them, helped me create awareness and pay more attention when I heard the words. Eventually, it became natural.

Why don’t you copy these words in your notebook too? And while you are at it, you can also say them out loud or look the pronunciation up in a dictionary if you aren’t sure how to pronounce them.

Disclaimer: my background is in British RP, and I know there might be differences in other accents. Also, some words can be pronounced both with /e/ or /ɪ/; an example of this is: evolution /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən/ /ˌev.əˈluː.ʃən/. In conclusion, take this post as a start and check a good dictionary when encountering a new word.