Would you believe me if I told you there is only one way of pronouncing each vowel? Didn’t think so! Vowels are difficult, even us natives have trouble pronouncing them. There are many different vowel sounds for each vowel, confusing, hey?
Luckily for you, I’ve pulled together some hot tips on vowel pronunciation for you to browse through. Before we begin… do you actually know what a vowel is? If not, I’ll tell you.
what is a vowel
A vowel is a sound made that doesn’t have a lot of constriction in the vocal tract. The vocal tract spans from the nose to the vocal cords and includes the lips, mouth, tongue, and throat. Simply put, vowels are the following letters from the alphabet: A, E, I, O and U. You can in fact say all the vowels without moving your mouth or tongue, try it out and see.
The remaining letters of the alphabet are called consonants.
long and short vowel sounds
Vowel sounds are divided into 2 categories – long and short vowel sounds. Here’s some examples.
Long vowel sounds
- A – fame, game
- E – been, team
- I – giant, time
- O – bingo, boy
- U – flu, tune
Short vowel sounds
- A – at, cat, say
- E – bed, red, ready
- I – fit, sit, mitten
- O – dog, fog, soggy
- U – but, must, trust
most common ways of pronouncing vowels
Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways we pronounce each vowel.
A – short vowel sounds
- examples – apple, animal, android, and, aunt, band, bat, camera, castle, fat, glass, handbag, January, landlady
pronunciation tips – Sounds like you are screaming ahhhhhhhh. It`s pronounced from deep in the back of your throat. - examples – any, anybody, anyone many
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the letter N. It’s a short vowel sound and is pronounced through the middle part of your mouth. - examples – a, amuse, annoy, available, company, gorilla, pizza, sofa, Victoria, zebra
pronunciation tips – Sounds like you are thinking and saying ummm.
A – long vowel sounds
- examples – a, Amy, angel, April, ate, case, fake, fame, May, play, say, tame, taste
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the letter A. It`s pronounced from deep in the back of your throat. - examples – audio, August, ball, call, fall, talk, taller, water
pronunciation tips – Comes from deep in the back of your throat, it`s a voiced sound and it rhymes with `awe`. - examples – arm, art, artist, cart, carpet, fart, March, park, Stuart
pronunciation tips – Followed by an `r`, it`s like you are saying `ahhhh` to a cute baby.
E – short vowel sounds
- examples – bet, December, egg, every, elephant, exercise, end, extreme, energy, February, fed, hello, September
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `eh`. It’s a short vowel sound and is pronounced through the middle part of your mouth.
E – long vowel sounds
- examples – agree, been, compete, east, either, even, eleven, green, keep, me, week
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the letter E, it’s a long vowel sound that is pronounced through the front of your mouth. - examples – adverb, better, dinner, earth, her, herb, letter, power, summer, spider
pronunciation tips – When followed by an `r` it sounds like `errr`. It`s pronounced from deep in the back of your throat. It’s a long vowel sound.
I – short vowel sounds
- examples – bit, chicken, city, drink, give, gravity, hill, igloo, impossible, in, irresponsible, lip, sick
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `ih` (like `it`), it’s a short vowel sound. This includes words ending in ‘ing’.
I – long vowel sounds
- examples – aisle, crime, diet, dinosaur, drive, giant, fight, I, ice, item, island, library, line, pie, sight, wine
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the letter i, it`s a long vowel sound. This includes words with i + gh and i + consonant + e.
O – short vowel sounds
- examples – blood, onion, opinion, opponent, other, police, son
pronunciation tips – Sounds like uh oh! It’s a short vowel sound. - examples – cod, cop, dog, hot, lobster, object, October, odd, of, off, ox, often, on, opposite, orange, produce
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the `o` in `on`. It’s a short vowel sound. - examples – once, one, oneself
pronunciation tips – Sounds like a W. It’s a short vowel sound.
O – long vowel sounds
- examples – cold, fold, goal, hole, old, toe, told, scaffold, soldier
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `oh no`. It’s a long vowel sound which comes from the back of your throat. - examples – boil, boy, enjoy, join, joy, noise, oil, oyster, soil, toilet, toy, voice
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `oi`. It’s a long vowel sound. - examples – bingo, crow, ego, go, hello, hippo, oath, ocean, ok, November, only, so
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the letter O. It’s a long vowel sound. - examples – boo, canoe, do, kangaroo, loo, moo, poo, to, two, who, you, zoo
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `you`. It’s a long vowel sound. - examples – allow, brown, cow, eyebrow, house, how, now, vow
pronunciation tips – Sounds like you’re saying `aww’ in pain. It’s a long vowel sound.
U – short vowel sounds
- examples – cup, drum, fun, just, much, numb, run, summer, umbrella, ugly, umpire, undo, up, us
pronunciation tips – Sounds like the `u` in `up`. It’s a short vowel sound.
U – long vowel sounds
- examples – communicate, humid, July, June, Tuesday, Tunisia, union, unicorn, uniform, university, usually
pronunciation tips – - examples – Sounds like the letter U. It’s a long vowel sound.
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `oo`. It`s a long vowel sound. - examples – burger, hurdle, surf, turn, urn, urgent, urban
pronunciation tips – Sounds like `er`. It`s a long vowel sound and occurs when an `r` follows a `u`.
rules for pronouncing syllables
There are some rules you can learn which tell you how a word/syllable should be pronounced. Try and learn this list if you can.
- Each syllable must have a vowel or vowel sound (this can include y and w).
- Decide which parts of the word are stressed.
- Find the correct slide below for your word and apply the rules to each syllable.
- If there is no stress on a syllable, the vowel is short and not emphasized (schwa sound).
- If there is stress on a syllable, the vowel is long and defined.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the rules to help you with your pronunciation.
- rule – If there`s only one syllable and one vowel in a word and it`s anywhere BUT the end, it’s usually short.
examples – act, bed, bin, fat, fish, lit, sit, spit, sun, Tim - rule – If there`s one vowel at the end, the sound is long.
- examples – be, go, he, no, she, to
- rule – If there`s an `e` at the end, it`s silent and the other vowel is long (CVCE).
- examples – cape, gate, hate, hole, make, rope, time, use
- rule – If there are two vowels in one syllable, the first is pronounced long and the second is silent (usually).
- examples – boat, cheat, gleam, leaf, mean, rain, seal, train
- rule – If a vowel precedes a double consonant (same letter), the sound is short. These words need to be split between the consonants.
- examples – addition, apple, dinner, happy, manner, pull, summer, well
- rule – If a word has a double vowel (same letter), the sound is short (this doesn’t include the `oo` sound).
- examples – book, foot, greet, meet, peek, sleep
- rule – If a vowel precedes a single consonant in the same or next syllable, it`s short.
- examples – atlas, Batman, silver, water
- rule – If a consonant follows a vowel in the middle of a word, it joins the next syllable. The vowel at the end of the syllable is pronounced long.
- examples – di-vide, fa-mous, pa-per, lo-cate, o-pen, pro-vide, re-view
- rule – If two consonants follow a vowel in the middle, one is pronounced at the end of the first syllable, the other at the beginning of the next.
- examples – com-puter, con-fuse, mis-take, sub-ject
pronouncing ‘e’ and ‘i’
The vowels ‘e’ and ‘i’ can be pronounced in many ways. It can be hard to decide how they should be pronounced. Scroll through the slides below and practice saying the words.
pronouncing ‘u’
Check out these nice little tip. for pronouncing ‘u’.
- If the pronunciation is `you`, we use the article `a`. e.g. A useless person. Common words include unit, united, useful, usually and utilise.
- If the pronunciation is `yer`, we use the article `a`. e.g. There’s a urinal in the men’s toilet. Common words include uranium, urinal, urine and Uranus.
- If the pronunciation is `er`, we use the article `an`. e.g. There’s an urn on the table. Common words include urban, urchin, urge, urgent and urn.
- If the pronunciation is `uh`, we use the article `an`. e.g. There’s an umbrella on the table. Common words include ugly, umbrella, under, unless unhappy and upon.
‘a’ ‘o’ and ‘u’ pronunciation practice
Sometimes, there is only a subtle difference between the vowel sounds. It is important to be able to distinguish between them as similar words exist in English. Read out the table below, you can use my mouth pictures as a guide.
pronunciation courses
Teaching pronunciation can be hard when you can’t hear or see mouth movements. I suggest trying one of these courses to really get those vowels in order.
Did you enjoy this page about vowel pronunciation? If you like learning about English pronunciation, head to my tips and tricks section for more.