How many vowel sounds are there in english

How Many Vowels Are There?

How many vowels are there in English? Five? Six? Twenty? Five and a half?

If you ask an American what the English vowels are, we will almost all say the exact same thing that we learned in school as children:

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.

Ellen Degeneres recently tweeted at NSYNC, and she jokingly congratulated for making a major accomplishment «without a vowel» in their band name. However, as many people (including Ginseng) explained, Y is a vowel in NSYNC. Ellen was just making a joke, of course, but many people, learners and native speakers alike, really don’t understand what it means when we say that Y is «sometimes» a vowel.

Let’s look a little closer at what exactly we mean when we say «and sometimes Y» in order to help us understand several important aspects of English pronunciation and spelling.

Vowels and Consonants

Before we can say how many vowels there are, we need to clarify what exactly a vowel is. The answer is not as simple as you may think. The most common dictionary definitions say something like this:

vowel (n.)

1. a speech sound in which air flows out through the mouth and is not blocked by the teeth, tongue, or lips;

2. a letter representing one of these sounds.

On the other hand, consonant is usually defined something like this:

So a vowel is a sound made with your mouth open, and a consonant is basically every other sound.

Sounds and letters

You may have noticed that the definitions of consonant and vowel above talk about both sounds and letters, and this is where the confusion comes from. Sounds and letters are different things. Letters are written and are meant to represent the sounds in a language.

However, you have probably noticed that English sounds and letters don’t have a perfect correspondence. For example, sometimes the letter C sounds like S (as in city) but other times it sounds like K (as in cat).

This is especially true about vowels. If we ignore Y for a moment, there are 5 vowel letters: A, E, I, O, U. However, if we look at vowel sounds there are between 14 and 21 (depending on the accent).

How is this possible? Think about the different sounds that A makes in the words father, bake, and cap, and the different U sounds in put, cup, and nuke.

The most important idea here is that letters can make different sounds.

Why is Y Special?

Okay, but we’re talking about Y, right? Is it a consonant or a vowel!? How many vowels are there!? We need a number!

So, like many other letters, the letter Y represents many different sounds. You can see the most common ones in the words only, cry, myth, and yet.

Let’s look more closely at those examples: in only, Y makes the long E sound /i/, the same sound E makes in we. In cry, Y makes the long I sound /aɪ/, pronounced like the I in mine. In myth, Y makes the short I sound /ɪ/, the same sound as the I in kid. As you can see, these are all vowel sounds.

The Y in yet is different. It isn’t really a sound that other letters frequently make. Its «the Y sound» /j/. And this is a consonant sound. If you make this sound, you will feel that the back of your tongue rises up toward the top of your mouth. Remember, when we block or obstruct the air to make a sound, this is what makes a consonant.

So the reason that the letter Y is sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant is that it makes several different sounds. Some of these sounds are vowel sounds, and one is a consonant sound. In the words only, cry, and myth, Y is a vowel. In yet, yellow, and you it is a consonant.

In case you were still wondering about Ellen’s NSYNC tweet, the Y in NSYNC is definitely a vowel.

Vowel Sounds and Letters in English

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms

Written English has a 26-letter alphabet. Of these 26 letters, 20 are proper consonants and five are proper vowels. One, the letter y, can be considered either a consonant or vowel depending on usage. The proper vowels are a, e, i, o, and u. Coming from the Latin word for «voice» (vox), vowels are created by the free passage of breath through the larynx and mouth. When the mouth is obstructed during speech production—most often by the tongue or teeth—the resulting sound is a consonant.

Short and Long Vowel Pronunciation

Long and Short Vowels

In the English language, each vowel can be pronounced many ways but the two most common variations are long and short. These pronunciations are often denoted by typographical signs: a curved symbol above a vowel represents short pronunciation: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ. Long pronunciation is indicated with a horizontal line above the vowel: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.

Vowels that have long pronunciations are most often modified by a secondary vowel that’s generally silent. In words such as «late» and «tune», the e is added to modify the main vowel sound and make it long; in words such as «goat» and «beat», the modifying vowel is the a; and in words such as «night,» «knight,» «flight,» and «right,» the long vowel i is modified by the gh.

Rulebreakers

While long and short are the most common vowel pronunciations, many words with vowel combinations do not follow these rules. For example, doubling the o in the word «moon» produces a long u (ū) sound and the y in «duty» not only modifies the u to an «ew» sound but is pronounced as its own syllable with a long e (ē) sound. Words that must be pronounced on a case-by-case basis because they seemingly don’t follow any rules—such as «aardvark,» «height,» and «diet»—can be confusing for those first learning English.

Vowels and Pronunciation

Vowels comprise the principal sounds of syllables and form a major category of phonemes, the distinct sets of sounds that allow listeners to distinguish one word from another in speech. Standard spoken English has approximately 14 distinct vowel sounds and regional dialectal variations account for even more. 

How a vowel is pronounced in English depends very much on who is pronouncing it and where they are from. There is an uncountable number of distinct dialects worldwide and these all pronounce vowels differently—these are uncountable because the definition of a dialect is somewhat loose.   Linguists disagree on the exact number of English language dialects but some place it at upwards of 23 (not including slang, pidgins, creoles, or subdialects).   Some dialects have more vowel distinctions than others.

For example, Standard American English has fewer vowel distinctions than Standard Southern British English, so while a Londoner from Mayfair would likely pronounce the words «merry,» «marry,» and «Mary» in three clearly different ways, these three words sound pretty much the same to the majority of Americans.

Using Phonetics to Pronounce Vowels Correctly

As challenging as it may be to learn every correct vowel pronunciation with so many rules and exceptions, there is actually a fairly easy-to-learn system that can help: phonetics. Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that deals with how speech is produced and offers a set of written symbols that represents each base unit of sound in a language.

Learning phonetics is an extra step in correctly pronouncing words, but the results will be well worth the effort. Phonetics has many applications. In fact, most teachers use phonetics when their students are learning to read and write and actors often use phonetics to break words down into component sounds when they are required to speak in a dialect or accent other than their native voice.

Long and Short Vowel Differences and Examples

If you’re just learning to read English, you may have noticed something very strange about the written language. Unlike many languages that have consistent rules for pronunciation, a lot of English words that use the same letters are pronounced differently. This is especially true with English vowels: the words “man” and “mane” are pronounced differently, while the words “mane” and “main” are pronounced the same. Why is that?

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In this article, we’ll go over the basic rules of long and short vowel pronunciation in English, as well as the best way to make sure you always get the pronunciation right whenever you learn a new English word.

How many vowel sounds are in English?

Depending on where you are and whom you ask, English has between 14 and 20 different vowel sounds. Most American English speakers have 15 or 16 vowel sounds.

If you’re learning English, you may already be familiar with the English alphabet, which has five vowels — a, e, i, o, u — and sometimes y. But with up to 20 different vowel sounds in English, how can just five or six vowels represent all the different sounds? Part of the solution is having short and long vowel sounds, that is, vowels that are pronounced differently depending on how and where they appear in a word.

What are short and long vowels?

In a lot of languages, short and long vowels are pronounced with the same sound but for different lengths of time. This isn’t the case in English. Instead, short and long vowel sounds get different pronunciations.

What does a long vowel sound like in English?

Long vowels in English sound just like the letter sounds in the alphabet. Some examples of long vowel sounds include:

Vowel	Long Vowel Example
a	name
e	meet
i	time
o	know
u	cute

What does a short vowel sound like in English?

Short vowel sounds, on the other hand, have very different sounds. Short sounds include:

Vowel	Short Vowel Example
a	apple
e	egg
i	bit
o	fog
u	but

Basic rules for long and short vowel sounds in English

There are a few rules you can use to help figure out whether a vowel should be pronounced as a short vowel or a long vowel in English.

Long vowel rules

Short vowel rules

Rule	Examples
Consonant-vowel-consonant: Vowels in the middle of short words are usual short vowel sounds	man, bet, tin, mom, cup
Vowel-consonant: Short words that start with vowels and end in consonants are usually short vowel sounds	at, in, on, up

How to know for sure if an English vowel is long or short

Though the rules above can help you figure out which words use long or short vowels, English is full of exceptions to these rules. So, if you’re not sure whether to pronounce a vowel as short or long, we recommend you look up the word in a dictionary. Every word should come with a pronunciation guide using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). IPA is used to help people pronounce words in any language around the world, including English.

If you look up a new word, use the IPA spelling to figure out for sure what the vowel should sound like.

Long vowel examples with IPA pronunciation

Vowel	Long Vowel Example	IPA (Vowel Only)	IPA (Full Word)
a	cake	/eɪ/	/keɪk/
e	steam	/i/	/stim/
i	knife	/aɪ/	/naɪf/
o	coat	/oʊ/	/boʊt/
u	fume	/yu/	/fyum/

Short vowel examples with IPA pronunciation

Vowel	Short Vowel Example	IPA (Vowel Only)	IPA (Full Word)
a	bat	/æ/	/kæt/
e	get	/ɛ/	/gɛt/
i	pin	/ɪ/	/pɪn/
o	top	/ɒ/	/tɒp/
u	pup	/ʌ/	/pʌp/

English has more than just long and short vowels

While long and short vowel sounds cover the majority of English words you’ll come across, remember that the full list of English vowel sounds can be at least 14 different sounds if you speak American English. As you improve your English skills, make sure to keep up with proper pronunciation. Our guide to improving English pronunciation will fill you in on everything you need to know to perfect your English pronunciation. And when you’re ready for more advanced English lessons, our English courses will get you speaking English like a native in no time.

Quiz on English long and short vowels

Below are 50 different English words. Can you tell whether they use long or short vowels? If you’re not sure, try using the basic rules above or looking up the IPA pronunciation in a dictionary.

English vowels

Phonemes are distinguished by minimal pairs, which demonstrate that sounds are distinctive and meaningful units in the language. For example, pairs like these show that these two vowels are distinctive and unique sounds of English, and not variants of one another.

Contents

1 Short and long vowels

The short vowels are lax, or produced with a relaxed tongue muscle, which include the phonetically simple vowels, or monophthongs, which consist of a single phonetic segment. These can occur in stressed or unstressed syllables. The long vowels of English occur in stressed syllables (either a primary or a secondary word stress), and are diphthongs, or double vowels, consisting of two phonetic elements. These can be glide diphthongs, where the core element glides into a nearby vowel element, or full full diphthongs like /ai/, which involve a transition to a different vowel in the oral space. In unstressed syllables we often have reduced vowels that are extra-short vowels that central vowels (produced in the center of the oral space, such as the schwa /ə/) or centralized, namely, a variety of /ɪ/ that is realized further back toward the center than the usual /ɪ/. The standard vowels of North American English are shown below, along with common British analogues.

Full monophthongs	Glide diphthongs	Full diphthongs	Reduced vowels
TRAP æ BATH æ (NAE) ɑː (UK) PALM ɑ LOT ɑ (NAE) ɔ, ɒ (UK) CLOTH ɑ (NAE) ɔ, ɑ (UK) THOUGHT o, ɔ (US) ɔ: (UK) KIT ɪ DRESS ε (US) e (UK) STRUT ʌ NURSE ɜ FOOT ʊ	FACE eɪ GOAT ɔʊ (US) əʊ (UK) FLEECE iː (i j ) GOOSE u: (u w )	PRICE aɪ CHOICE ɔɪ MOUTH aʊ	COMMA ə LETTER əɹ (ɚ) (US) ɜ (UK) HAPPY i, ɪ MESSAGE ɪ̈ (ɨ)

2 North American English

These are the general vowel phonemes of North American English.

General American

Front		Central	Back
lax	tense		lax	tense
Close	ɪ	i	ʊ	u
Close-mid	eɪ	ə ɜ	ɔʊ
Open-mid	ɛ		ʌ ɔ
Open	æ	ɑ
Diphthongs	aɪ ɔɪ aʊ

3 Received Pronunciation

These are the general vowel phonemes of standard British or received pronunciaiton.

Received Pronunciation

Front		Central		Back
short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː	ʊ	uː	ɔː
Mid	e	eə	ə	ɜː	ɒ
Open	æ	ʌ	ɑː
Diphthongs	eɪ aɪ, ɔɪ aʊ əʊ ɪə ʊə
Triphthongs	(eɪə aɪə ɔɪə aʊə əʊə)

4 Australian

These are the general vowel phonemes of General Australian English.

The 44 Sounds in the English Language

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When supporting children in learning the sounds of the English language, remember to choose words that demonstrate all 44 word-sounds or phonemes. English contains 19 vowel sounds—5 short vowels, 6 long vowels, 3 diphthongs, 2 ‘oo’ sounds, and 3 r-controlled vowel sounds—and 25 consonant sounds.

The following lists provide sample words to use when teaching the sounds of the English language. You may choose to find more words to fill out word families or align with sight vocabulary lists such as a Dolch Word List. Your learners will benefit most from terms that are familiar to them or make sense in their life.

The 5 Short Vowel Sounds

The five short vowel sounds in English are a, e, i, o, and u.

Remember that these sounds are not necessarily indicative of spelling. Note that the above words all contain the vowel whose sound they make but this is not always the case. A word might sound as if it contains a certain vowel that is not there. Examples of words whose short vowel sounds do not correspond with their spelling are busy and does.

The 6 Long Vowel Sounds

The six long vowel sounds in English are a, e, i, o, u, and oo.

Examples of words whose long vowel sounds do not correspond with their spelling are they, try, fruit, and few.

The R-Controlled Vowel Sounds

An r-controlled vowel is a vowel whose sound is influenced by the r that comes before it. The three r-controlled vowel sounds are ar, er, and or.

It is important that students pay close attention to the er sound in words because it can be created by an r-controlled e, i, or u. These vowels are all transformed into the same sound when an r is attached to the end of them. More examples of this include better, first, and turn.

The 18 Consonant Sounds

The letters c, q, and x are not denoted by unique phonemes because they are found in other sounds. The c sound is covered by k sounds in words like crust, crunch, and create and by s sounds in words like cereal, city, and cent (the c is found in the spelling of these words only but does not have its own phoneme). The q sound is found in kw words like backward and Kwanza. The x sound is found in ks words like kicks.

The Blends

Blends are formed when two or three letters combine to create a distinct consonant-sound, often at the beginning of a word. In a blend, the sounds from each original letter are still heard, they are just blended quickly and smoothly together. The following are common examples of blends.

The 7 Digraph Sounds

A digraph is formed when two consonants come together to create an entirely new sound that is distinctly different from the sounds of the letters independently. These can be found anywhere in a word but most often the beginning or end. Some examples of common digraphs are listed below.

Point out to your students that there are two sounds that th can make and be sure to provide plenty of examples.

Diphthongs and Other Special Sounds

A diphthong is essentially a digraph with vowels—it is formed when two vowels come together to create a new sound in a single syllable as the sound of the first vowel glides into the second. These are usually found in the middle of a word. See the list below for examples.

Источники информации:

• http://www.thoughtco.com/vowel-sounds-and-letters-1692601
• http://blog.udemy.com/short-and-long-vowel-differences/
• http://www.enwiki.org/w/English_vowels
• http://www.thoughtco.com/sounds-in-english-language-3111166