Originally Posted by
Max_Killjoy
Odd... I don't have to close my mouth to make or sustain the sound I'm talking about, and the closest it comes to "two sounds" is a minuscule pop of breath if I don't lead into it from another letter... if I say "sigh" and just kinda hold the sound there's no starting /a/ and no need to close the mouth... or I could stretch the middle of "fright" out for however long doing the same thing.
I went through this last fall when trying to work on a conlang (with help from someone who was offering as a way to practice for their linguistics degree)... spent three days trying to find the symbols for "long I", etc, before we figured out I meant sounds that don't have single symbols enough though I don't hear any hint of "two sounds".
And like I said, all the IPA vowel charts sound like 75% variations on the same sort of grunting pained sound.