Learn how to pronounce different letters in English correctly
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| Introduction |
| Gina: Hello, I’m your host Gina. |
| Gabriella: Hello! I’m Gabriella. |
| Gina: Vowels in British English. |
| Gina: In this series, we will help you with your English pronunciation, and the focus of this lesson is vowels. |
Lesson focus |
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| Gabriella: That’s right. We’ll demonstrate how to pronounce the vowels, and give you a few tips about how to do it correctly. |
| Gina: In the last lesson, we concentrated on consonants, so moving onto vowels seems to the sensible and natural thing to do! |
| Gabriella: Definitely. Now, we know that there are 21 consonants and five vowels. |
| Gina: And what are the five vowels? |
| Gabriella: A, E, I, O and U. |
| Gina: Vowels are very important in English, as virtually every word in the English language has at least one of those five vowels. |
| Gabriella: That’s right, and the few words that don’t, such as “sky” or “rhythm”, instead have a vowel sound provided by the letter “y”. |
| Gina: “Y” sometimes pretends to be a vowel, doesn’t it? |
| Gabriella: It does. Most of the time it’s a consonant, but it does occasionally like being a vowel. |
| Gina: As you said, we have five actual, full-time vowels in A, E, I, O and U. How many different sounds do these five vowels produce? |
| Gabriella: Too many! In this lesson, we will look at 19. |
| Gina: Nineteen from five letters… that really is too many! |
| Gabriella: The vowel sounds can be split into two categories – simple, “pure” vowel sounds, and then diphthongs. |
| Gina: What’s the difference? |
| Gabriella: Pure vowels are just one sound, such as the “a” sound in “cat”. It’s just one letter and one sound. |
| Gina: And diphthongs? |
| Gabriella: They are two vowel sounds within the same syllable. They can also be called “gliding vowels”, because your tongue has to quickly glide between the two sounds. |
| Gina: Let’s hear an example or two of diphthong sounds, before we get into listing the individual sounds. |
| Gabriella: Okay. Listen to the vowel sound in “house”. “House”. |
| Gina: Yes, the “ou” sound is two vowels added together. |
| Gabriella: That’s a diphthong, and they can be a little tricky, so let’s tackle them later and start with the pure vowels first. |
| Gina: Okay! |
| Gabriella: First, there is the “e” sound in “seat” and “tree”. |
| Gina: The “i” in “fit” and “fish”. |
| Gabriella: The “oo” sound in “book”. |
| Gina: And “pull”, even though that’s spelt with a “u”. |
| Gabriella: Yes, vowel sounds don’t always follow the way they are spelt! |
| Gina: The “eh” sound in “head” and “said”. |
| Gabriella: The “er” sound in “teacher” and “observer”. |
| Gina: The “i” sound in “girl” and “nurse”. |
| Gabriella: Again, spelt differently! The “or” in “door” and “four”. |
| Gina: The “a” in “apple” and “had”. |
| Gabriella: The “u” in “cup” and “love”. |
| Gina: The “ar” in “heart” and “dark”. |
| Gabriella: And finally, the “o” in “hot” and “stop”. |
| Gina: Those are all the simple. They’re short and one-sound vowel sounds. |
| Gabriella: Yes. We just demonstrated 12 short vowel sounds, and there are seven of the longer, two-sound diphthongs. |
| Gina: Let’s start the diphthongs then! |
| Gabriella: The “ea” in “year” and “ear”. |
| Gina: The “air” sound in “chair” and “where”. |
| Gabriella: The “oh” in “throw” and “low”. |
| Gina: The “ou” in “out” and “lounge”. |
| Gabriella: The “eh” sound in “they” and “way”. |
| Gina: The “ai” sound in “thigh” and “lied”. |
| Gabriella: And finally, the “oi” sound in “joy” and “choice”. |
| Gina: I think you can really hear the difference between the diphthongs and the short vowels. |
| Gabriella: Yes. They can be difficult to master because they involve some gymnastics with your tongue, in order to change from the first sound to the second. |
| Gina: In a word such as “year”, you can really hear how the vowel sound changes within that single syllable. “Year” [slower] |
| Gabriella: Yes, the word “ear” consists entirely just of the diphthong, almost. |
| Gina: Let’s just repeat some of these example words so that the listeners can hear them again. Pay close attention to the vowel sounds in each word. |
| Gabriella: Okay. “Year, ear”. |
| Gina: “Chair, where”. |
| Gabriella: “Throw, low”. |
| Gina: “Out, lounge”. |
| Gabriella: “They, way”. |
| Gina: “Thigh, lied”. |
| Gabriella: “Joy, choice”. |
| Gina: I think that there is one more thing we should briefly cover in this lesson. If you look in an English dictionary, you might see some strange symbols next to a word. |
| Gabriella: This is the phonetic alphabet. Each vowel and consonant sound we have discussed in this lesson and the last one, has a symbol attached to it. The dictionary will have each word spelt out in the phonetic alphabet, so that you know how to pronounce it. |
| Gina: It can be difficult to remember the symbols and the sounds, especially for beginners, but it can be very useful as you progress through your English learning. |
| Gabriella: Definitely, so pay close attention to those, listeners. |
Outro |
| Gina: And that’s all for this lesson! Don’t forget to check the lesson notes! |
| Gabriella: Thanks for listening, see you next time! |
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