>>>Could someone who is native French speaker answer the following question?
>>>
>>>The French word “vais” like in Je vais .... According to all dictionaries the combination of “ai” should be pronounced “ay” as in English “pain”. But I can’t seem to hear the ending “y” when I listen to native speaker(s) in almost all cases of “ai”/”ay”. My question is, do you guy pronounce the “y” so lightly that my aging ears can’t hear it? Or the way you speak is not the way the dictionaries indicate and you simply drop the ending “y”?
>>>
>>>TIA
>>
>>Hmm. Their not pronouncing the 'y' because there isn't one :-}
>>But, to my ears 'je vais' sounds like 'je vay' - certainly not as in the American pronounciation of 'vase' ?
>
>Check how the Google Translate chick says it: https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/je%20vais
>
>She does better with a full sentence: https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/je%20vais%20en%20France

Hm. The second uses 'vay' - I think the pronounciation changes depending on the following syllable/word. I hear 'je vay' much more often (just back from a couple of weeks in France).