English vowels in 3 mins

Vowels (from vowel letters: a, e, i, o, u, y) are the key to producing correct sounds. If you have trouble making others understand your English, work on vowels and you will be surprised! In this blog you will learn all the vowels in the easiest way because we only focus on the most common rules so you can apply them very quickly. You can master them by doing these two things: 

1. Listen and watch how I pronounce the sounds in the video. 

2. Open your mouth and practice, practice, practice.


Group 1 - short vowels:

When there is only one vowel letter in a word, the letter is pronounced 'short vowel'.

/æ/ rat [The letter, a, in bold is pronounced /æ/. This is the rule you should remember. You don't need to remember the symbols.]

/e/ vet

/ɪ/ zip

/ɑː/ lot (Am), laugh (Br) 

/ɒ/ lot (Br) [The word 'lot' has two different pronunciations, American /ɑː/ and British /ɒ/. Choose one of them for your speaking but be familiar with both for your listening.]

/ʌ/ jug

Group 2 - long vowels:

When there are at least two vowel letters in one word, they are possible to be pronounced 'long vowels'. They sound longer than 'short vowels'.

/eɪ/ case (the letters, a-e, are pronounced /eɪ/)

/iː/ mete

/aɪ/ kite

/oʊ,əʊ/ hope

/uː/ blue

/juː/ cute (/j/ is a consonant and often connects with /uː/.)

Group 3 - other vowels:

/ɔː/ paw (American and British pronunciations are a little different for this one.)

/aʊ/ gown

/ɔɪ/ coin

/ʊ/ good

/ə/ police

Group 4 - vowels + r :

This group is different between American and British pronunciations, one with /r/ sound and the other without /r/.

/ɑː(r)/ car

/ɔː(r)/ core

/ɜː(r)/ sir

/ə(r)/ paper

/ɪə(r)/ year

/eə(r)/ hair


Now it is your turn to watch the video and keep practicing until you master all the sounds.












[Reminder] Watch the video before starting reading the text and you can see all the pictures together if you click on one of them! You can also use the 'Translate' tool on the blog to help you understand the text. What's better, all the key vocabulary in my examples ranges from elementary to advanced levels (CEFR: A1~C2 / IELTS: 1~9) so you will learn a lot of English words if you keep studying each lesson. You will also benefit more if you use a dictionary to help you. Finally, don't forget to use English in daily life so all the grammar/vocabulary can be stored in your mind easier. While using this language, you are also learning from others and observing when is the appropriate context for different usages. 

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