Vowel Sounds Overview

This post gives a short overview of the vowel sounds in British English.  I use a system called SPELL to represent the individual sounds.


Short vowels

Three-letter words in English are very predictable.

The word “cat” contains three sounds: c, a, and t

“Red” is r, e, d

“Dog” is d, o, g

“Big” is b, i, g

And “bus” is b, u, s

It doesn't look like we need a special way to represent sound with funny symbols. We can just use the alphabet, can’t we?

Yes… and no.

The word “push”, for example, causes a problem. The vowel sound is a different (deeper) sound than the u in “bus”. If we want to show that they are different, we need some kind of symbol.

Let’s define u as the deeper sound.

So “push” is p, u, sh

That means that we have 6 short vowel sounds but only 5 letters.

Our short vowel sounds then are a, e, i, o, u, u

Click here for more on the short sounds


Long vowels

These are the vowel sounds that we hear when we say the alphabet.

A     cake      caek

E      teeth     teeth

I       kite        kiyt

O      boat      boet

U      tune      tyuun

In written English, we can write the same sound in different ways, using a combination of two or more letters. For example, the words ‘male’ and ‘mail’ are pronounced in exactly the same way.

The sound-symbols that I use for these long vowel sounds are a combination of two letters, but I always use the same two letters to represent each sound.

I will write them as: ae, ee, iy, oe, uu.

So the sound of both “male” and “mail” is mael.

Notice that the name of the letter of the alphabet, U, is actually pronounced yuu. It begins with the consonant sound, y.

The combination of ‘u’ and ‘e’ in “tune” also makes yuu:

      the word is made from the sounds: t, y, uu and n

However, the combination of ‘u’ and ‘e’ in “flute” makes uu:

      the word is made from the sounds: f, l, uu and t (there is no y sound)

There is no rule for this. Sometimes there’s a y; sometimes there isn’t.

Click here for more on the long sounds


Cowboy vowels

There are two ‘cowboy’ vowel sounds, which, in English, are written using a combination of letters. Here are some examples:

cow      cŏ
boy       boy

sound   sŏnd

coin      coyn

We use a special symbol, ŏ, to represent the vowel sound in “cow” and "sound" because the letter combinations 'ow' and 'ou' don’t always make that sound. For example, in the word  “town”, ‘ow’ makes the sound ŏ but in the word “show”, ‘ow’ makes the sound oe.

We use oy to represent the vowel sound in boy and coin.

Click here for more on the cowboy vowels


The R-vowels

There are three different vowel sounds that are often written using a combination of a vowel and the letter ‘r’. Here are some examples:

purple      pūrp~l
car           cār
door         dōr

In these words, the letter ‘r’ is part of the vowel sound. It is not pronounced as a consonant sound (in British English).

I will write these sounds ūr, ār and ōr.

Notice that the vowel sound ūr can be spelt in three different ways:

purple      pūrp~l
person     pūrs~n
girl           gūrl

The first vowel sound in the words “person”, “girl” and “purple” is exactly the same: ūr.

Click here for more on the R-vowels


The lazy vowel

Some vowels make a very weak, lazy sound. This happens when they are part of an unstressed syllable. Here are some examples:

alive        ~liyv
waiter      waet~
person     pūrs~n
pilot         piyl~t

I will write ~ for this sound. We don’t want it to look very much like a letter because it is so relaxed that it’s almost not there!

Click here for more on the lazy vowel


The Sliders

There are five more vowel sounds that native speakers of English may think of as individual sounds, although they are really combinations of the sounds I have already introduced. Here are some examples:

beer      bee~
fire        fiy~
cure       cyuu~
flour      flŏ~
chair      che~

For each of these sounds, we slide from one sound to another.

I will write them: ee~, iy~, uu~, ŏ~ and e~

Click here for more on the sliders


So those are the vowel sounds of English. If you’re not sure how they sound, go to the Individual Vowel Sounds posts in the Vowels Menu where you can listen to them one by one.