Merhaba.

I´ve noticed that many Turks pronounces the final vowel of the past tense suffix "di" exactly like "e", for example dedi [dede], ekledi [eklede], söyledi [söylede] and so on.. Is this correct pronunciation or just a regional dialect? Does this phenomenon works with other vowels too?

Wovels are short in Turkish. Maybe that is why you hear them that way. Or maybe because of your native language, you have a different concept about wovels.

Hmm.. maybe. But for example, listen to this guy pronouncing yedi: http://www.forvo.com/word/yedi/#tr I can clearly hear he says "di" at the end. Contrary to this woman pronouncing dedi - http://www.forvo.com/word/dedi/#tr It´s like a completely different sound! Sounds totally like "dede" to me. (or even dedı !)

Yeah. I agree about woman´s pronounciation. It is weird.

But this is not the first time I hear such pronunciation.

Listen also to the piece of the video that eblove asks to help them with in this thread: http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_58106

In the first line they transcribed it correctly as "dedi", but I also can hear the girl saying "dede" as well... Actually eblove´s post made me start thinking about it

I guess soemtimes we pronounce it like e. I think it is because short "i" has a similar sound with e.

Türkçede her harfin yalnızca bir sesi vardır. "i" hiçbir zaman "e" gibi okunmaz, "e" de  hiçbir zaman "i" gibi okunmaz . Yanlış öğrenmişsin. Eğer İngiliz alfabesiyle karşılaştırıyorsan, evet, İngiliz alfabesindeki "e" bizim için i´dir. (In Turkish, each letter has only one sound. "i" is never pronounced like "e", and "e" is never pronounced like "i" as well. You have learnt wrong. If you compare it with the English alphabet, yes, "e" which is in English alphabet is "i" for us.)

Unless you are talking about letter e´s pronounciation in English that considered wrong Turkish. Unfortunately, amount of the people who speak correct Turkish in Turkish Republic drastically decresed lately. 

I actually agree with sufler. İ is (at least it sounds me) like E when it´s in the end of word ( sometimes )

I actually can compare it with my native Serbian language.
´´Dedi´´ in Turkish means ´´He/She said´´. In Serbian ´´Dedi´´ is dative of : ´´grandpa (deda)´´.
In Turkish it sounds me like something between e,i and ı. In Serbian it sounds me like İ. 


At least,it is how I see letter ´İ´.