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Pronunciation , Lesson 1 - The Pronunciation of Vowels in American English

Chihiro Hi everyone, I'm Chihiro and you're listening to

English Pronunciation Series Lesson 1 - The
Pronunciation of Vowels in American English
Ryan Hi guys, I'm Ryan and welcome to our Pronunciation
Series. Today we’re going to start with the basics and
slowly work our way up!
Chihiro In these five lessons, we will explain American
pronunciation in detail so that you have a better
understanding of how the language works. For those
who already have some English background, we’ll
provide you some detailed information so that you can
have an in depth understanding of the pronunciation to
help you through misunderstandings you may have
experienced due to your articulation.
Ryan For those of you who are beginners, this should provide
some information to help you along your way. If you
don’t understand the instructions completely, you can
just imitate the sounds that we will be using as
examples.
Chihiro As you know, different languages have different
1 sounds, and sometimes it is difficult to imitate the sound
of another language when learning it. In this first lesson,
we will break down vowels that are used in General
American English pronunciation so that you can see
why you may have difficulty hearing certain words or
why the pronunciation of some words is so odd.
Ryan But before we begin, let’s review the alphabet.
Chihiro When we say that something is in alphabetical order, it
means that it goes in this order; A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H,
I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
Ryan If you’re teaching children the alphabet, then there’s a
little song that they can sing along to help
memorization. Chihiro, sing it for us in your award
winning singing voice.
Chihiro There's a reason why I don't have a hit single out. I'll
sing half, you sing half. Ready? A,B,C,D,E,F,G...
Ryan H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P...
Chihiro Q,R,S,T,U,V...
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Ryan W,X,Y,Z...
Chihiro And that's what you can sing to young children to help
them know their ABCs. It's the same tune as the twinkle
twinkle little star for those who know it.
Ryan Now, don't worry, there's no more singing listeners,
Carrying on, The English Alphabet is based on Latin
and has 26 letters. Each letter has an uppercase form
and a lower case form. When written in cursive writing,
it may look slightly different from print. Also,
depending on what font you are using when typing on
the computer, some letters may look slightly different.
Chihiro Now, as we mentioned before, we'll be looking at the
vowels of American English. The twenty-six letter
English alphabet has twenty-six sounds divided into two
groups - vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Unlike
consonants, which are "closed" sounds for which we
stop the flow of air in some way, vowels are "open"
sounds. When we form vowel sounds, the air is not
stopped, and it flows freely from the mouth. Every
English word has at least one vowel sound.
Ryan The English alphabet has five vowels which are - "-a,"
"-e," "-i," "-o," and "-u"
Chihiro While there are only five vowels in writing, there are
eighteen to twenty-three vowel sounds depending on the
researcher.
Ryan Vowels generally fall into two categories - "long
vowels" and "short vowels." You can guess that the
2 long vowels are the ones that last for a longer time than
short vowels. We make vowel sounds in our mouths by
positioning our tongue and the lips.
Chihiro The sounds are made by positioning the tongue in the
front, center and back of the mouth. We make front
vowels with the tongue positioned in the front of our
mouths. We make back vowels in the back of our
mouths, and we make central vowels in the center.
Ryan A monophthong is a single vowel sound, also know as
a pure sound. A diphthong is when the tongue changes
its position and glides from one vowel sound to another.
A triphthong is when the vowel sounds changes its
position three times.
Chihiro But instead of getting too technical with the names, we
will explain the different sounds using different words.
It will be easier to understand the vowels and their
sounds this way.

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Ryan Let's start with the front vowels.

Chihiro The "i" sound in the words
Ryan "heat" and "leap"
Chihiro The "i" sound in the words
Ryan "hit" and "tip"
Chihiro The "e" sound in the words
Ryan "met" and "kept"
Chihiro The "a" sound in the words
Ryan "map" and "bat"
Chihiro And those are the front vowels sounds. Here are the
example words again.
Ryan Heat, leap, hit, tip, met, kept, map, bat
Chihiro And next we have the central vowels. The "e" sound in
the words
Ryan "nut" and "cut"
Chihiro The "e" sound in the words
Ryan "the" and "away"
Chihiro There is one more according to some linguistics, but
since Ryan and I don't pronounce it, we won't go over it.
So the examples again for central vowels are,
Ryan nut, cut, the, away
Chihiro And here are the back vowels. The "oo" sound in
Ryan "loop" and "boot"
Chihiro The "o" sound in
Ryan "hook" and "put"
Chihiro The "o" sound in
Ryan "thought" and "fought"
3 Chihiro And the "o" in
Ryan "hot, "bog"
Chihiro Those are examples of regular short vowels. Some
vowels that are close in sound may not be so important
to differentiate. However, some words may have vowels
that depend on the sound difference of the vowel as
well. They are usually not extremely close in this case.
Ryan Let's carry on with our diphthongs.
Chihiro Okay, let's do that. The "ow" sound in the word
Ryan "low"
Chihiro The "ou" sound in the word
Ryan "loud"
Chihiro The "ai" sound in
Ryan "lied"
Chihiro The "ay" sound in
Ryan "lane"
Chihiro The "oy" sound in

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Ryan "loin"
Chihiro The "oo" sound in
Ryan "loon"
Chihiro The "ee" sound in
Ryan "lean"
Chihiro The "ee" sound in
Ryan "leer”
Chihiro The "ai" sound in
Ryan "lair"
Chihiro The "ur" sound in
Ryan "lure”
Chihiro Remember that diphthongs are sounds that change from
one sound to another. Ryan will repeat the example
words again.
Ryan low, loud, lied, lane, loin, loon, lean, leer, lair, lure
Chihiro And finally the triphthongs which you might have
guessed as the vowels that have three consecutive
sounds in a row. Let's start with the "ou" in the words
Ryan "sour”
Chihiro The "ia" in the word
Ryan "liar”
Chihiro The "ayo" in the word
Ryan "mayor”
Chihiro The "oya" in the word
Ryan "royal”
Chihiro And the "owe" in the word
Ryan mower”
4 Chihiro Again, those examples were
Ryan sour, liar, mayor, royal, mower
Chihiro Dictionaries will have the pronunciation represented in
a phonetic form, which may be the IPA symbols or
another form of phonetic representation.
Ryan If you know the sound represented by each symbol,
then you'll be able to know how a word is pronounced
by looking at the dictionary. However, if you don’t
know then it may be easier to go online and look a
dictionary with a sound function to it, so that it
enunciates the word for you.
Chihiro Sometimes it doesn't matter if you pronounce a vowel
differently, but sometimes it does matter in that it could
be an entirely different word. The more you practice
your pronunciation, the more you'll be able to hear the
different vowels, and the more you'll understand. You
might also avoid some embarrassing misunderstanding

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you might have had in the past as well.

Ryan Good luck with these and keep practicing.

LC: PRO_L1_112410 © www. EnglishClass101 - All Rights Reserved 2010-11-24

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