English Vowel Sounds

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English Vowel Sounds

A vowel letter can represent different vowel sounds:
Examples:
hat /ˈhæt/, hate /ˈheɪt/, all /ˈɑ:l/, art /ˈɑɚt/, any /ˈɛni/.

The same vowel sound is often represented by different vowel letters in writing:
Examples:
/eɪ/ they, weigh, may, steak, rain.

Open and closed syllables

Open syllable: An open syllable has one and only one vowel, and that vowel occurs at the end of the syllable.
Examples:
no, she, ɪ, a, and spry.

Closed syllable: A closed syllable has one and only one vowel, and it ends in a consonant.
Examples:
in, ask, truck, sock, stretch, twelfth, on.

Vowels and vowel combinations

The vowels A, E, I, O, U, Y alone, in combination with each other or with R, W represent different vowel sounds. The chart below lists the vowel sounds according to the American variant of pronunciation.

Sounds	Letters	Examples	Notes
/i:/	e, ee ea ie, ei	be, eve, see, meet, sleep, meal, read, leave, sea, team, field, believe, receive	been /ɪ/; bread, deaf /ɛ/; great, break /eɪ/; friend /ɛ/
/ɪ/	i y	it, kiss, tip, pick, dinner, system, busy, pity, sunny	machine, ski, liter, pizza /i:/
/ɛ/	e ea	let, tell, press, send, end, bread, dead, weather, leather	meter /i:/ sea, mean /i:/
/eɪ/	a ai, ay ei, ey ea	late, make, race, able, stable, aim, wait, play, say, day, eight, weight, they, hey, break, great, steak	said, says /ɛ/; height, eye /aɪ/
/æ/	a	cat, apple, land, travel, mad; AmE: last, class, dance, castle, half
/a:/	ar a	army, car, party, garden, park, father, calm, palm, drama;
/aɪ/	i, ie y, uy	ice, find, smile, tie, lie, die, my, style, apply, buy, guy
/aʊ/	ou ow	out, about, house, mouse, now, brown, cow, owl, powder	group, soup /u:/ know, own [ou]
/ɑ:/	o aw, au ought al, wa-	not, rock, model, bottle, copy law, saw, pause, because, bought, thought, caught, hall, always, water,  want
/oɪ/	oi, oy	oil, voice, noise, boy, toy
/oʊ/	o oa, ow	go, note, open, old, most, road, boat, low, own, bowl	do, move /u:/ how, owl /aʊ/
/ju:/	u ew eu ue, ui	use, music, cute, huge, few,  mew, euphemism, feud, hue, cue
/u:/	u o, oo ew ue, ui ou	rude, Lucy, June, duty, student do, move, room, tool, crew, chew, flew, jewel, new blue, true, fruit, juice, sue group, through, route;	guide, quite /aɪ/; build /ɪ/
/ʊ/	oo u ou	look, book, foot, good, put, push, pull, full, sugar, would, could, should
/ʌ/	u o ou	gun, cut, son, money, love, tough, enough, rough
/ɚ/	er, ur, ir or, ar ear ur	serve, herb, burn, hurt, girl, sir, work, word, doctor, dollar, heard, earn, earnest, earth. nurse, sure, injure	heart, hearth /ɑɚ/; cure /jɚ/; fury /juri/
/ɑɚ/	ar ir	park, large, are, noir, menoir	noir, menoir /wɑɚ/; choir /wajɚ/
/eɚ/	air ar er eir er ear	pair, share, marry, there, their, very, wear
/iɚ/	ear er eer	ear, here, beer	buyer /ajɚ/; hire /ajɚ/; friar /ajɚ/
/oɚ/	or our	more, form, four	story /or/; coyer /ojɚ/
/uɚ/	oo our	poor, tour	flour  /awɚ/

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Note 1: The letter Y

The letter "Y" can function as a vowel or as a consonant. As a vowel, "Y" has the vowel weak sound /i/, and the sounds /ɪ/, and the diphthong /aɪ/. As a consonant, "Y" has the consonant sound /j/, usually at the beginning of the word and only in the syllable before a vowel.

Examples:
/ɪ/: mystery, synonym;
/i/: any, city, carry, funny, mystery;
/aɪ/: my, cry, rely, signify, nylon, type;
/j/: yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you.

Note 2: Diphthongs

A diphthong is one indivisible vowel sound that consists of two parts. The first part is the main strong component (the nucleus); the second part is short and weak (the glide). Diphthongs refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. A diphthong is always stressed on its first component: /aɪ/, /aʊ/, and /oɪ/.

Some tense vowels are also written with two letters because they also have some diphthong-like tongue and face movement, but they are not diphthongs because they begin and end in the same vowel position: /eɪ/ and /oʊ/

Note 3: The sound /ɑ:/

The sound /ɔ/ is short in British English. In the same words in American English, the sound /ɔ/ is a long sound colored as /ɑ:/.

Examples: /ɑ:/
lot, rock, rob, bother, bottle, Tom, gone, coffee, office, borrow, loss, lost, want, wash, water.

Note 4: The neutral sound

Transcription symbols for the neutral sound are /ʌ/ (caret) in stressed syllables as in fun, son, and /ə/ (schwa) in unstressed syllables as in about, banana.

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