In the Mind's I

The mind’s eye makes each person perceive the world in a unique way. For example, various people can look at the same movie, or listen to the same song at the same time, and interpret what they see and hear differently from each other. Since English is not a phonetic language, it’s easy for non-native speakers to mispronounce what they see. A good example of this is the pronunciation of the vowel I.

Pronouncing vowels can be very tricky; they can have various sounds. Each vowel has at least two basic sounds, which are often referred to as long or short sounds. The long sound of a vowel is its sound as it is pronounced in the alphabet. Normally, the long sound occurs when we have the pattern vowel-consonant-vowel, especially when the last vowel is the vowel E. It can also be produced when there are two vowels together. The short sound is common when a vowel is followed by just one or two consonants. Phonetically, in Spanish, the long sound of I looks like ai, and the short sound looks like i. 

Look at the example below. And listen to the recording below while you read.

1) in the vowel-consonant-vowel pattern: ai 

crime, hide, file

diner, dining 

Of course there are exceptions: i
medicine, finish

2) In the vowel-vowel pattern: ai

pie, dried

3) At the end of syllables: ai

science, trial, crisis
China, Chinese

And in the prefixes:

bicycle, triathalon

But not in the prefix uni-: i

universe, uniform

4) In the vowel-consonant(-consonant) pattern: i
sit, crib

simple, lift, ring

dinner, build, children

5) But there also many vowel-consonant-consonant exceptions: ai

mind, find, blind, kind

sigh, thigh, fight, light, right

child, wild
microwave, microchip