Mastering English Vowel Sounds: Pronunciation and Spelling
English Vowel Sounds: Pronunciation and Spelling
Description and spelling of the English vowels:
1 – /iː/
Description: Front of the tongue raised to a height slightly below and behind the close front position. Lips spread, tongue tense, side rims making firm contact with the upper molars.
- Does not normally occur in a syllable closed by a long ‘n’.
Spelling:
- ee (green)
- ea (mean)
- i (machine)
**Also occurs in plurals of nouns: analyses, bases, theses
2 – /ɪ/
Description: Part of the tongue nearer to the center than the front, raised just above the half-close position. Lips loosely spread, tongue lax, with the side rims making light contact with the upper molars. May occur in all positions in a word.
Spelling:
- i (knit, bit)
- ie (hippie)
- e (pretty)
**Prefixes: be (become), ex (explain), in (insane), re (remain)
**Suffixes: es (buses), ed (wanted), less (careless), ness (goodness)
**Unaccented syllables: there is free variation of /ɪ/ and /ə/, poss-i-ble, inter-e-sting
Minimal pairs: effect-affect-accept-except
3 – /e/
Description: Front of the tongue raised between the half-close and the half-open position. Lips loosely spread and slightly wider apart than for /ɪ/. The tongue may have more tension than in the case of /ɪ/, the side rims making light contact with the upper molars.
- Does not occur in final, open syllables.
Spelling:
- e (send)
- a (any)
- ea (heaven)
Note: says, said, leopard, bury, Geoffrey, ate
4 – /æ/
Description: Mouth slightly more open than for /e/, front of the tongue raised just below the half-open position. Side rims making a very slight contact with the back upper molars. Lips neutrally open. Lengthened in RP (Received Pronunciation) especially before the lenis consonants /b, d, ɡ, l, m, n/ (cab, bad, bag, badge, jam, man)
Spelling:
- a: rat, cat, mad, hand
- ai: plait, plaid
5 – /ɑː/
Description: Considerable separation of the jaw. Lips neutrally open. Part of the tongue between the center and back is in the fully open position, no contact being made between the rims of the tongue and the upper molars.
- Does not normally occur before a velar ‘n’.
Spelling:
- a: last, grass, staff, plant
- er: clerk, derby, sergeant
- ar: part, car, march
- ear: heart, hearth
- al: calm, palm, hal
- au: aunt, laugh
There are many cases of indecision between /æ/ and /ɑː/ when followed by (f, pastilla, dental o s) or by a nasal consonant + consonant “lather” “transfer” “elastic” “plastic”
- /æ/: passage, ass, cant, finance, romance, expand, random, gas
- /ɑː/: pass, glass, can’t, grand, chance, dance, demand, slander, caster
6 – /ɒ/
Description: Articulated with wide open jaws and light lip rounding. The back of the tongue is in the fully open position, no contact being made between the rims of the tongue and the upper molars.
- Does not normally occur in a final, open syllable.
Spelling:
- O: box, hot, dot, cot
- a: wander, want, swan, what
- ou, ow: cough, knowledge
- Au: because, sausage, Australia, Austria, cauliflower
Words with the /ɒ/ and /f, pastilla, s/ have an alternative pronunciation with the /ɔː/
- It is more common among young people.
7 – /ɔː/
Description: Relatively long RP vowel is articulated with wide medium lip rounding. The back of the tongue raised between the half-open and half-close. No contact between the tongue and upper molars.
- Does not normally occur before a velar ‘n’.
Spelling:
- Or: port, sort, nor, sword
- Aw: law, saw, jaw, yawn
- Au: daughter, fault, cause, taught
- Al: talk, walk, salt
- Ore: before, more, folklore
- Oor: door, floor
- Oar: soar, oar, board, hoarse
- Ou: bought, ought, fought
- A: all, fall, water, wrath, salt
- Ar: warm, swarm, quart
- Oa: broad, abroad
- Our: court, four, pour, course
8 – /ʊ/
Description: Short RP vowel, pronounced with part of the tongue nearer to the center than to the back, raised just above the half-close position. Closely but loosely rounded.
Spelling:
- u: push, pull
- oo: wool, good
- ou: could, should
- o: wolf, bosom
- oo + k: look, book (except spook)
9 – /uː/
Description: Back close vowel. Its relation with /ʊ/ is similar to the relation with /ɪ/ and /iː/. The lips tend to be closely rounded.
- Does not normally occur before a velar ‘n’.
Spelling:
- oo: too, food
- ew, ue, ui, oe: chew, blue, juice, shoe
- u: crude, rule
- ou: you, group
- o: do, move
10 – /ʌ/
Description: Articulated with a considerable separation of the jaws, and with lips naturally open. The center of the tongue is raised just above the fully open position.
- Does not occur in initial, open syllables.
Spelling:
- u: gun, hut
- oo: blood, flood
- o: done, oven
- ou: touch, trouble
- oe: does
11 – /ɜː/
Description: Articulated with the center of the tongue raised between half-close and half-open. No firm contact being made between the tongue and the upper molars, lips naturally spread.
/ɜː/ and /ə/ can be thought of as long and short variants of one phoneme, /ə/ being unstressed in the pairs:
- a) foreword /ɜː/
- b) foreward /ə/
Spelling:
- ir: shirt, bird
- er(r): mercy, her
- ur(r): burn, fur
- our: journal, journey
- yr: myrrh, myrtle
- ear: earn, earth
- or: attorney
- w+ or: worm, worth
12 – /ə/
Has a very high frequency of occurrence in unaccented syllables. Neutral lip position.
Spelling: This vowel may be spelt with most vowel letters and their combinations.
- e: gentlemen
- er: mother
- ure: figure
- o: oblique
- or: doctor
- a: woman
- ar: particular