Throbert McGee, thank you for the interesting post!
What particularly makes it interesting for me are the rhymes like

Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post
Commander Data gave the tray
To the девушке.
[The dative case is used for indirect objects. Here, "tray" is the direct object of the verb "gave", and "the girl" who received the tray is the indirect object.]

President Clinton spent his day
Thinkin' 'bout the девушке.
[The prepositional case gets its name because it ALWAYS has a preposition before it. Here, the preposition is "about" -- in Russian, "about the girl" would be о девушке.]
I'm afraid my question might be a bit out of the topic, it purely deals with the pronunciation, but it is one of the intriguing things for me.

I am aware of the fact that native English speakers rhyme the English "ay" [eɪ] sound (say, day …) with other languages’ [e] and [ɛ] (e.g. English "say" – Russian "все" – French "ses" [se] – French "sais" [sɛ] – Spanish "José" etc.).
What puzzles me is that, as to my ears, the English "ay" does not rhyme with the Russian "э/е" at all. I definitely hear the "ay" as a diphthong, which sounds quite similar to the Russian "эй" combination. I clearly hear the "-y" [-ɪ] glide here: say "сэй", day "дэй" etc.
So, I would say that the English "say" would rather rhyme with the Russian "всей", but no way it rhymes with "все".

It’s very interesting to me if you could explain:

  1. Does an "average" English speaker really hear the sound "ay" to rhyme with the Russian "э/е" or they just use this rhyme because the English [ɛ] (as in "bed") never occurs word-finally?
  2. I believe all English speakers as well as all Russian speakers hear the words "met" and "mate" differently. Then, "may" has the same vowel as "mate", right? If we ask to compare those words with Russian "мэт" (if such a word existed), they would say it more resembles "met", not "mate". Would the same logic work if we ask to compare English "may" with Russian "мэ" (if such a word existed)?
  3. Do English speakers "hear" the second element (glide) of the diphthong "ay" in their speech? To my ears, this glide is the main thing which makes "met" and "mate" sound differently.
  4. The most interesting question: would an "average" English speaker hear the difference between Russian "все" and "всей", "уже" and "ужей" (genitive plural of "уж") etc.? If yes, how would they describe the difference?