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.

Pronunciation 10: Spelling Tables... and Chameleons!

In the last pronunciation post, we looked at the spellings with root letter A. This is part of 'standard spelling', which is largely predictable and rational.

Some letter combinations are commonly pronounced in more than one way but remain predictable. I will label these in green and refer to them as chameleons.

Remember that you are not expected to learn all of this in an instant. The idea is to make a connection between what a word looks like and what it sounds like.

Here are the five spelling tables for each root letter, A, E, I, O and U.

Root letter A

From the table, 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'. The last of these is a chameleon*
• there is only one standard way of spelling ār: 'ar'.
• there are three standard ways of spelling e~: 'air', 'are' and 'eir'.

*'ei' is a chameleon because it can also make the sounds ee and iy.

Root letter E

From the table, you can see that:

• there is one standard way of spelling the sound e : 'e' 
• there are 6 standard ways of spelling ee: 'ee', 'ea', 'ey', 'ie', 'y' and 'ei'. The last three are chameleons* 
• there are three standard ways of spelling ūr, only one of which is written 'er' ('er' = 'ir' = 'ur') 
• there are three standard ways of spelling ee~: 'ear', 'eer', 'ere' 

*'ie' is a chameleon because it can also make the sound iy
*'y' is a chameleon because it can also make the sound iy
*'ei' is a chameleon because it can also make the sounds ae and iy

Root letter I

From the table, you can see that:

• there is one standard way of spelling the sound i : 'i' 
• there are three standard ways of spelling iy: 'ie', 'y' and 'ei', all of which are chameleons* 
• there are three standard ways of spelling ūr, only one of which is written 'ir' ('er' = 'ir' = 'ur') 
• there is one standard way of spelling iy~: 'ire' 

*'ie' is a chameleon because it can also make the sound ee
*'y' is a chameleon because it can also make the sound ee
*'ei' is a chameleon because it can also make the sounds ae and ee


Root letter O

From the table, you can see that:

• there is one standard way of spelling o: 'o' 
• there are three standard ways of spelling oe: 'oa', 'oe' and 'ow', the last of which is a chameleon* 
• there are seven standard ways of spelling ōr: 'or', 'au', 'aw', 'oar', 'oor', 'ore' and 'our', the last of which is a chameleon*
• there are two standard ways of spelling oy: 'oi' and 'oy'. 
• there are two standard ways of spelling ŏ: 'ou' and 'ow', the last of which is a chameleon* 
• there is one standard way of spelling ŏ~: 'our', which is a chameleon*

*'ow' is a chameleon because it makes the sounds ŏ and oe
*'our' is a chameleon because it makes the sounds ŏ~ and ōr

Root letter U

From the table, you can see that:

• there is one standard way of spelling u: 'u', which is a chameleon*
• there are two standard ways of spelling u: 'u', and 'oo', which are both chameleons*
• there are five standard ways of spelling uu: 'ue', 'ui', 'eu', 'ew' and 'oo', the last of which is a chameleon*
• there are three standard ways of spelling ūr, only one of which is written 'ur' ('er' = 'ir' = 'ur')
• there are two standard ways of spelling uu~: 'ure' and 'eur'

*'u' is a chameleon because it makes the sounds u and u

*'oo' is a chameleon because it makes the sounds u and uu

So, for 21 vowel sounds, we had 45 letter combinations, 7 of which were chameleons.

After all that, I think I feel a song coming on!

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.

Pronunciation 8: Writing and Sound

In the previous pronunciation post, we reviewed the vowel sounds. Now let's think about how they are related to how we write words. I'm going to make a distinction between two types of words: 'standard spelling' and 'non-standard spelling'.

Let's look at some examples:

Sound	Standard Spelling	Non-standard Spelling
hat	hat
hed		head
scārf	scarf
coet	coat
lārf		laugh
ruum	room
cuk	cook
blud		blood

Standard Spelling

'scarf' is standard spelling but 'laugh' is not

'Standard spelling' is predictable, and in some cases, you will be able to pronounce a written word just by looking at it.

For example, the words 'hat', 'scarf' and 'coat' are totally predictable. If you see the written words, you can pronounce them, if you know that 'a' makes an a sound, 'ar' makes an ār sound and 'oa' makes an oe sound.

Maybe 'oa' doesn't make an oe sound in your language, but it does in English. It's predictable, so it's standard spelling.

There are other situations where you see a word and you don't know for certain how it is pronounced. The pronunciation here may still be predictable: perhaps we have two possibilities instead of one.

For example, in standard spelling, the letter combination 'oo' either makes an uu sound or an u sound. So the word 'room' could logically be pronounced ruum or rum, and the word 'cook', could be cuuk or cuk.

But 'room' is ruum and 'cook' is cuk. There is no way of knowing for certain until you hear the word being used, but there were only two possibilities to begin with. You have a 50/50 chance of guessing the right one.

This is still classified as 'standard spelling.'

(Actually, depending on where they live, some people say rum for 'room' and others say cuuk for 'cook'.)


Non-standard Spelling

'cook' and 'room' are standard spelling but 'blood' is not

Non-standard Spelling' is not easily predictable, and it is hard to find any rules at all.

The words 'head', 'laugh' and 'blood' are all non-standard. The way they are written doesn't match the way we say them. Why don't we write 'hed', 'larf', and 'blud'? That would be logical, right?

Or why don't we pronounce them, heed, lōr and bluud (or blud)?

Sorry, this is the way it is with non-standard spelling. On the positive side, when you start to group words together in families, you will start to see patterns. We will deal with this in later posts.


Let's stick with the standard stuff for now... in the next post we'll talk about how to understand the relationship between standard spelling and sounds.

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.

Pronunciation 6: The Sliders

Ok, so the big question is: if I just said that the Lazy Vowel was the last of the vowel sounds, what are we doing here?

Well, you'll be pleased to know that the Sliders are not new vowel sounds. If you've been through Vowel Sounds 1-5, you already know the sounds we're going to talk about. But I want us to think about how some of those sounds combine together.

Hopefully, you remember the long vowel sounds in part 2.

Let's take three of them:

ee       iy       uu

That's the ee in 'feet' or 'team', the iy in 'kite' or 'time', and the uu in 'spoon' or 'cute'.

And I really hope you also remember the Lazy Vowel from part 5:

         ~

That's the ~ at the beginning of 'about' or at the end of 'doctor'.

Now for the sliders! (How exciting.) They all slide from one vowel sound into the Lazy Vowel,  ~ .


The E-slider: ee~

Try sliding from ee to ~. Don't stop in the middle. Nice and smooth... like a nice, cool beer.

beer          bee~
clear         clee~
sincere      sinsee~


The I-slider: iy~

Now, try sliding from iy to ~. Don't stop in the middle. Nice and smooth.

fire        fiy~
tyre       tiy~


The U-slider: uu~

Now, try sliding from uu to ~. Don't stop in the middle. Nice and smooth.

cure        cyuu~
Europe    yuu~r~p


So, the sliders associated with the letters E, I and U are simply a combination of the long vowels, ee, iy and uu, and the lazy vowel, ~.




It's interesting that the long sounds, ae and oe, do not have sliders. The slider that we associate with the letter O comes from the first cowboy vowel instead, ŏ.
And strangely, the slider that we associate with the letter A comes from the short vowel, e.


The cowboy O-slider: ŏ~

Try sliding from ŏ to ~. Don't stop in the middle. Nice and smooth.

flour        flŏ~
ours        ŏ~z
hours      ŏ~z       Yes, the h in this word is silent.

Now we have sliders associated with letters E, I, O and U. But what about the letter A?
Why did I leave that till last? Because the A-slider is a bit strange.

The strange A-slider: e~

What's going on here? The A-slider is a combination of the short e sound and the lazy vowel, ~.

The e sound?

Yes.

Not the a sound.

No.

Try sliding from e to ~. Don't stop in the middle. Nice and smooth.

Wait a minute...

No, come on, do it!

chair        che~

rare          re~

airfare      e~fe~

As you can see, the e~ is associated with the letter A. The letter E already has a slider, from the long ee sound. That's why the sound e~ has jumped over to join the letter A. (Quite a nice thing to do, really.)

So that's it!

The next post will give an overview of the vowel sounds and how they relate to written words.