Pronunciation 7: Vowel Sounds Summary

In the first six posts in the pronunciation section, we have been defining the vowel sounds in English. Below are all of the vowel sounds together in a table. You should spend plenty of time trying to pronounce these sounds clearly. If you don't, people will not understand you.

This system of notation is called SPELL. It helps to make a connection
between the sounds in English and the letters you need to write them.

Let me talk you through the table.

In row zero, we have the names of the letters, A, E, I, O and U. Each letter is associated with a number of sounds, which are given in the yellow part of the table.

In row 1, we have the short sounds, a, e, i, o, u, u.
Click here for more information.

In row 2, we have the long sounds, ae, ee, iy, oe, uu.
Click here for more information.

Row 3 only has two sounds, the cowboy vowels: ŏ and oy.
Click here for more information.

In row 4, we have the R-vowels, three sounds, ār, ōr and ūr.
   ūr appears in three columns because it is associated with three different letter

    combinations - 'er', 'ir' and 'ur' - but it is only one sound. So ‘person’, ‘shirt’ and ‘hurt’

    all contain the same sound, ūr
Click here for more information.

In row 5, we have the lazy vowel, which is the unstressed vowel sound, ~ and the most common sound in the English language. It's lazy because it's very relaxed - you don't need to make a shape with your mouth -  it's almost not there.
Click here for more information.

So, those are all of the basic vowel sounds.

Row 6, in grey, is a bit different. These sounds are combinations of vowel sounds that we have already defined. But we're going to give them a name anyway: the sliders. They are made by sliding from one vowel sound to the lazy vowel ~.

They are... e~, ee~, iy~, ŏ~ and uu~.
Each one is associated with a letter and is placed in that column in the table.

The e~ slider is a little unusual. It is a combination of the sounds e and ~ but has jumped over into the A column. This means that it is usually associated with an A: for example, in the word, 'airfare' (e~fe~)
Click here for more information.

So, that's the summary of the vowel sounds. Now that we know what they are, let's find out how we can relate them to written English.