ALL the VOWEL SOUNDS in ENGLISH

Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today's lesson

is on the vowel sounds in English and in British

English in particular. There are maybe two

or three other ones in American English, but

we're just looking at the British English today, which is plenty because there are 19

on my list here. So, you might think 19 is a lot,

and it is a lot. When you think that the actual

letters, the vowel letters in the alphabet,

there are just five of them, A, E, I, O, and U.

And I know in a language like Spanish, you just

have the five vowel sounds that come from those

letters, which makes it much easier to know how

to pronounce words in Spanish. But in English,

it's kind of the opposite, that each letter that you find in the spelling of a word,

it could be pronounced in several different ways so that anything with an A in it,

in different words, it will be a different

sounding vowel sound from that A letter. So,

what we have here on the board are 19 vowel sounds, the main ones in British English,

and we've got an example word in the left-hand

column to demonstrate what that vowel sound

sounds like. And I've put the phonetic symbols

from the International Phonetic Alphabet at the

side here as well. You don't have to learn

these. You may know them and find them useful,

but don't worry if you don't understand the

symbols, they're just there to show that each

of these vowel sounds is different and has its

own symbol. You don't have to learn them. Okay.

And then the words we've got here as examples are

very familiar words, I hope. They're not obscure

words. So, okay, so let's have a look. First of

all, we have the word "bad". So, "a" as in "bad",

that's one use of the letter "a" as a vowel

sound, "bad". Then we have this word "calm". So,

"ah" is another vowel sound, "ah". It's a big,

open "ah", like when you go to the dentist and

say "ah", or the doctors, and they want to see

down your throat. "Ah". Okay? So, "ah", "ah".

And then we have an "o" here, which is "pot", so

it's a short "o", "o". The thing about English

vowel sounds, they're usually either short or

long, so we have short and long vowel sounds.

So, "ah" is short, "ah" is long, "o" is short. "Bite", so the "i" in "bite",

"i", there's the symbol for that, that's a longer vowel sound.

"Owl" in "now", that's another long vowel sound, "owl".

"Caught", so "aw", that's another long vowel sound.

Okay? "Oy" in "boy", another long vowel sound.

"Eh" as in "bed", that's a short vowel sound again, "eh", "bed". Okay.

"There", so "air", "air", that's longer again.

You can tell it's longer because it takes longer

to say it. Okay, as simple as that. "A" as in

"make", "a", so that's still a long vowel sound.

Then we have "a" as in "about", it's not the

"ow" here, it's "a", "a", which is called

"schwa", you've probably heard of "schwa" because it comes a lot in English words,

so "a", "about", and it comes at the ends of

words as well, words like "baker", "butcher",

"writer", "doctor", the "uh", "uh", "uh" at the end, so "uh", "bout", "doctor". Okay.

"Note", so "o" is a longer vowel sound, "note".

"Bird", so "uh" is a longer sound again.

"Sheep", so people often have difficulty making

the difference in sound between "sheep" and you

just have to make it longer, "ee", "ee", it is a

double "e" in the spelling, so that's the symbol

for it. "Sheep", and then this is a short "i",

"ship", "ship", so just say it more quickly,

"sheep" and "ship", and you'll be able to make the difference between the two. Okay.

"Boot", so "oo" is a longer sound, "boot". And

then "put", so "oo", "oo", "oo" is quite short,

"put", "oo". And then this one, this is a strange

one because I only know this one word that has

this particular vowel sound in it, and not everybody pronounces it this way anyway,

but going by the symbol, this is pronounced "oo", "oo", so it's almost two. It is two

vowel sounds put together. "Poor", "poor", and I

think only some... A small percentage of English

speakers pronounce it that way. A lot of people just pronounce it "paw", "paw", so

it would be more like the "or" in "court". You

know, some of these are so similar to each other,

it's very hard to hear the difference, especially

if English isn't your first language. So, "or",

"court", and "paw", a lot of people pronounce

this "paw", "or", "or", "or" just like "or"

meaning either "or", but a small number, maybe

more sophisticated people, pronounce it "poor",

"poor". And I think it's the only word with that

vowel sound that I know of, "oor", so "poor".

But it's fine to pronounce it "paw", "paw".

Okay. And then finally, the last one is "cut",

"uh", "uh", "uh", "uh", "uh". So that's the

symbol for that one, "cut". Okay, so I'll just run

through these words again. I'll just say them in

a natural, simple way, normal way just for you to

hear the vowel sounds. Listen out, see if you

can hear the differences between them all. Okay,

so here we go. "Bad", "calm", "pot", "bite",

"now", "caught", "boy", "bed", "there", "make",

"about", "note", "bird", "sheep", "ship", "boot",

"put", "poor", "cut". Okay, so I hope that's been

a helpful lesson to help to clarify all these many

different vowel sounds in English, and good luck

with getting to grips with them and differentiating

between them. So, thanks for watching, and hope

to see you again soon. Bye for now.