If you know the pronunciation difference between ‘fair’ and ‘fear’ and can identify that the diphthong /eə/ is present in the former – fair, while /iə/ is present in the latter – fear, then you are good to go.
If you do not, just pronounce ‘fair’ /feər/, with the diphthong /eə/ which sounds almost exactly the way you pronounce the ‘e’ in ‘egg’ or exactly like you would pronounce ‘air’.
So, today, NRTC English focuses on many other words (like stair, hair, bear, care etc) that sound like ‘fair’ and the logic behind this pattern.
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The diphthong /eə/ is often realized in words that contain letters ‘air’ and ‘are’.
Examples of such words are:
- air as in stair, fair, pair, hair, air, etc
- are as in care, rare, bare, share, hare, dare, prepare, fare, mare, etc.
NOTE that words like wear, where, bear, heir, wary, tear (verb), their and there (same pronunciation) also contain the diphthong /eə/ and are pronounced exactly the way you pronounce the vowel /eə/ in ‘fair’.
From my experience as an English teacher, I can state that it appears there are no exceptions to this pattern: All words that contain the letters ‘air’ and ‘are’ invariably have the diphthong /eə/.
