Pronunciation 9: Standard Spelling and How It Works!

If we go back to the vowel sound table, you'll remember that each column has a letter at the top. This is the root letter and it is associated with all of the sounds in that column.








Let's look at root letter A.

The short sounds, in row 1, are written using the root letter on its own, surrounded by consonants.

For example, in the word 'cat', there is one vowel, on its own, so the sound is a.

When two vowels are next to each other, we usually get the long sound in row 2. Also, if vowels are separated by only one consonant, we also get the long sound.

For example, in the word 'nail', there are two vowels next to each other. In the word 'cake', there are two vowels separated by only one consonant. In both cases, the first of the two vowels is 'a', and we get the long sound, ae.

The vowel sound in 'nail' and 'cake' is the same but it is written in different ways. The combination 'ai' spells the sound ae, and the combination 'ae' (here separated with a 'k') also spells the sound ae.

So how do we know which sound a particular combination makes? Well, you can learn them. This is the spelling table for Root Letter A.

You can see that another spelling of the ae sound is 'ay', as in 'pay'. Most of the spellings start with the root letter.

Now, you will notice there is one spelling of ae that doesn't use the root letter, and that is 'ei'. This is a surprise but it is still one way to spell the ae sound.

Unfortunately, the same combination, 'ei' sometimes makes an ee in other words, such as 'receive', and sometimes an iy, as it does in 'poltergeist'. Letter combinations like this that can make different sounds will be highlighted in green and I will refer to them as chameleons.


From the table for Root letter A you can see that:

• there is one standard way of spelling a: 'a'.
• there are four standard ways of spelling ae: 'ae', 'ai', 'ay' and 'ei'.
• there is only one standard way of spelling ār: 'ar'.
• there are three standard ways of spelling e~: 'air', 'are' and 'eir'.

Note that the sound e~ is included under Root letter A because it is usually associated with the letter, 'a'. Spelling e~ 'are' or 'air' is much more common than spelling it 'eir'.

Also, I can hear you complaining that the word 'are' is not actually pronounced e~, and is in fact pronounced ār. You are right, of course. But, my friends, the word 'are' is non-standard spelling! The words 'care', 'dare', 'fare', 'hare', 'mare', 'rare', 'ware', 'share', 'spare' and 'stare' are all pronounced e~, like the good, honest, standard words that they are!

In the next pronunciation post, we'll look at the spelling tables for each of the root letters, A, E, I, O and U.