Is stop a long or short vowel

Learning English Pronunciation: What are long and short vowels?

Pronunciation is an important part of learning a new language – it’s especially important when it comes to your speaking and listening skills! When you learn English abroad with EC, you’ll definitely hear about ‘vowel sounds’ from your awesome teachers, but let’s take a quick look at long and short vowels right here.

What’s a long vowel?

A long vowel sound is one that is pronounced the same way as its name, like the A in the word ‘make’ (meɪk). In the phonetic alphabet, it’s written as /eɪ/.

What’s a short vowel?

A short vowel sound does not sound like the letter’s name, like in the word ‘mad’. In the phonetic alphabet, this sound is written /a/. This can be tricky when saying words like ‘beach’ or ‘sheet’, which can sound a lot like some rude words!

Short vowel sound (/a/): e.g. At
The /a/ here is pronounced like /æ/, it’s the same sound you will also find in words like apple, back, and plan.

Long vowel sound (/eɪ/): e.g. Ate
Here, the sound is pronounced as the name of the letter, like /eɪ/. You’ll find the same sound in words like same, plane, and snake.

Short vowel sound (/e/): e.g Bet

The short /e/ sound here sounds like /ɛ/, as in words like check, ten, and when.

Long vowel sound (/i:/): e.g. Beat

The long ‘e’ sound is pronounced like /iː/, the same sound you’ll find in words like eat, we, and meet.

Short vowel sound (/i/): e.g. Bit

This short /i/ sound is pronounced /ɪ/, like in words kitten, milk, and ring.

Long vowel sound (/aɪ/): e.g. Bite

The long ‘ī’ sound here sounds like /aɪ/ and can be spelled in a number of ways, as in words like ice, cry, and high.

Short vowel sound (/o/): e.g. Not

This sound is pronounced like /ɒ/, like in words off, cop, and stop.

Long vowel sound (/əu/): e.g. Note

The long /ō/ sound here can be heard in words like boat, local, and joke.

Short vowel sound (/u/): e.g. Cut

This sound is pronounced (/ʌ/), like in bus, until, and ugly.

Long vowel sound (/uː/): e.g. Cute

The /uː/ sound can be heard in the words use, argue, and student.

» What’s the difference between short and long vowels?

Learning the building blocks of words - sounds, their spellings, and word parts

18 Replies

Phonics teaching materials often talk about "short" and "long" vowels, as though the latter are just extended versions of the former.

The five vowels usually called "short" are:

• "a" as in "cat",
• "e" as in "red",
• "i" as in "sit",
• "o" as in "not",
• "u" as in "bus".

The five vowels usually called "long", and which children are told "say their (letter) name", are:

• "a" as in "paper",
• "e" as in "be",
• "i" as in "find",
• "o" as in "g o",
• "u" as in "human".

But are we talking about sounds here, or particular spellings of these sounds?

If "short" vowels are sounds (regardless of spelling), then the following are short vowels too:

• "a" spelt as in "plait", "salmon", and "Fahrenheit",
• "e" spelt as in "bread", "said", "says", "any", "leopard", "heifer", "friend", and "bury",
• "i" spelt as in "gym", "pretty", "busy", "sieve", and "women",
• "o" spelt as in "want", "because", and "entree",
• "u" spelt as in "front", "young", "blood", and "does".

Following the same logic, the following are also "long" vowels:

• "a" spelt as in "make", "rain", "say", "they", "eight", "vein", "break", "fete", "cafe", "puree ", "sundae", "gauge", "gaol", and "straight".
• "e" spelt as in "bee", "eat", "field", "these", "ski", "funny", "turkey", "protein", "marine", "paediatric", and "amoeba",
• "i" spelt as in "like", "by", "pie", "high", "type", "bye", "bonsai", "feisty", "height", "kayak", "eye", "iron", "tae kwondo", and "naive".
• "o" spelt as in "home", "boat", "goes", "glow", "plateau", "mould", "mauve", "though", "folk", "brooch", "owe", "sew" and "Renault".
• "u" spelt as in "use", "few", "cue", "feud", "you", "beauty", "nuisance", "ewe", "vacuum".

Try saying "capped-caped", "dinner-diner", "bellow-below" (stressing both syllables in "below"), hopping-hoping and "cutter-cuter".

The spoken versions don't just differ by length, and the written words with "short" vowels are actually longer, due to their double letters.

The terms "short" and "long" are misleading and confusing. These vowels are not short and long versions of each other.

They're completely different vowels

If you stretch out an "a" as in cat, you don't get an "a" as in paper.

"A" as in "cat" is a low front pure vowel, and "a" as in paper is a diphthong (two vowels run together) which moves from low to high in the front of the mouth.

The same goes for the other "short-long" pairs. The long" vowel "e" as in "be" is a pure vowel, but "i" as in "find" and "o" as in "go" are both diphthongs.

The sound "u" as in "human" is actually a consonant-vowel combination ("y" as in "yes" plus "u" as in "hula"), which makes sense of the spelling of "you", but not most of its other spellings. Which part of the letter "u" in "human" is representing the "y" sound, and which part the "ooh"? For learning-spelling purposes it's counterproductive to slice it so finely. However, children will often hear the "y" and want to write it, and teachers need to know that it's not a figment of childish imaginations, there really is a "y" sound in "new" (unless you speak American English).

Why people think "short" vowels are short

The "short" vowel sounds cannot occur at the end of a syllable in English. They must be followed by a consonant.

In linguistics, they are called "checked" vowels. We actually have six of them, the other one being "u/oo" as in "put" or "good".

Since we only have five vowel letters, but we have 20 vowel sounds, we have to use syllable position and letter-combining to get a bit of clarity around which sounds we mean.

Often we use vowel combinations like ai, ee, ea, ie, oa, oo, oe and ue.

Often we use a vowel plus a letter Y, W, R or L, as in ay, ey, oy, aw, ew, ow, ar, er, ir, or, ur, and sometimes al (as in calm or walk) and ol (as in yolk).

The letters Y, W, R and L otherwise represent consonants that are quite open and vowel-like.

Well, actually, the letter Y by itself is almost always a vowel spelling (as in "by", "baby" and "gym"), but not at word beginnings, where people writing "X is for xylophone" type alphabet books tend to focus.

A doubled consonant letter (ff, ss, ll, zz etc) usually indicates that the vowel before it is a "short" vowel, i.e. it's not an open syllable, it ends with a consonant (as per the "capped-caped" etc example above).

What about the other vowels?

In the dialect I speak, there are twenty vowel sounds, not ten. The missing-in-action ones in the five-short-five-long classification are:

• "oo" as in "good", "put", "could", "wolf".
• "ooh" as in "moon", "flute", "chew", "soup", "hula", "blue", "fruit", "to", "lose", "shoe", "sleuth". This tends to get lumped in with "long u" as it shares some spellings and is one of the two sounds in the letter name U ("y" + "ooh").
• "ar" as in "car", "pass", "calm", "heart", "are", "baa", "aunt", "galah" and "clerk".
• "er" as in "her", "first", "nurse", "works", "early", "journal", "were", "masseur" and "myrtle".
• "aw" as in "for", "saw", "more", "all", "launch", "four", "warm", "door", "walk", "bought", "caught", "board", "dinosaur", "broad", "sure" and "awesome".
• "ou" as in "loud", "cow", "drought", "Maori", "sauerkraut" and "miaow".
• "oy" as in "boy" and "coin".
• "air" as in "care", "hair", "there", "bear", "parent", "aeroplane", "millionaire", "their", "prayer" and "mayor".
• "ear" as in "deer", "hear", "fierce", "here", "bacteria", "weird" and "souvenir".
• The unstressed vowel in words of more than one syllable, or unstressed grammatical words like "a" and "the", which can be spelt using any vowel spelling. Think of the last syllable in "butter", "actor", "collar", "sofa", "centre", "flour", "tapir", "murmur" and "picture". As long as children get a solid grounding in the other vowel spellings, they can then use this knowledge to tackle the unstressed vowel, and in their "spelling voice" say "buttER", "actOR", "collAR" etc. There is no need to teach the unstressed vowel as a separate Thing, like this (this is from a THRASS chart):

If the other 19 vowel sounds and their spellings are not all taught systematically and well, expect some students to have a lot of trouble spelling the unstressed vowel. It's what signwriters get wrong all the time.

Adults can use the terms "short vowel" and "long vowel" among ourselves if we like, but I don't think it's helpful to teach this misleading and confusing terminology to children.

Instead, we can just say the sounds ("the sound ay", "the sound oy" etc) and teach children all the main spelling patterns for each sound, systematically and explicitly, before the end of their third year of schooling. This will be extremely bad for my business, but hey, the people at school will be among the ones giving out pills in my nursing home. I want them literate.

« Reorganising high-frequency word lists

English vowels: pronunciation ɜː, ɒ, ɔː - tongue twisters, video, sound practice

Hello reader! 🙂 Today we have again prepared for you a whole training for setting the pronunciation of English sounds. In this series of articles (this is already the 3rd one in a row), we will analyze the subtleties of the English phonetic system and find the differences between the sounds of the English language and our Russians.

Today we will analyze the analogues of the /o/ sound in English. Or rather, they are just not analogues, but our phonemic hearing plays a cruel joke with us, and we:

1. change all three English sounds to Russian /o/,
2. we do not see the difference between these 3 sounds and thus change the meanings of some words.

We will build the practice of the sounds of the English language, as before: with the help of training videos, a special set of words, exercises, tongue twisters and a song with a reference pronunciation. Let's go!

Warning: is the British pronunciation used in this article. What exactly are the differences among the Americans, I will indicate below. nine0003

Pronunciation of the sound /ɜː/ - long vowels in English

Pronounced in the words girl, nurse, learn, etc. e (m e e) and e (m e l) , respectively), while it is neither one nor the other.

I would say that you need to take the position of the lips, as for / e /, hold your mouth in this position, but try to pronounce / o /. Reminds in the word D those The sound is long.

How the speech apparatus works: the back of the tongue lies flat, the middle part of the tongue is slightly raised, higher than the front and back of the tongue. The tip of the tongue is at the bottom teeth. The edges of the tongue do not touch the upper teeth. The distance between the upper and lower teeth is quite narrow. The lips are tense and stretched, slightly revealing the teeth.

Pronunciation errors of English words in Russian

What are the main mistakes of Russian speakers:

give the sound / ɜː / a touch of the Russian sound / o /. Lip position as for / e /, but pronounce / o /.

2. Complete replacement for the Russian sound /o/, denoted by the letter ё in writing, in words like, worse, sir , etc. nine0003

Tip: give the English sound a hint of Russian /e/. The lips should be stretched, the teeth brought together, the tongue should be flat.

And, accordingly, do not round your lips, as for Russian / o /. It is recommended to pronounce / ɜː / with almost the same stretched position of the lips as for the phoneme / i: / => see / si: / - sir / sɜː /, fee / fi: / - fir / fɜ: /, heat / hi: t / - hurt / hɜːt /.

The stretched position of the lips is especially obligatory when pronouncing /ɜː/ after /w/ => we /wi:/ – world /wɜːd/, we /wi:/ – work /wɜːk/, we /wi:/ – worm /wɜːm/ . nine0003

Useful article on the topic: The best podcasts in English, or Listen!

3. Also note that the consonant before this vowel does not need to be softened (we wrote about this in detail in the last article). In words like girl, first, bird , etc., the consonants will be hard.

Advice: do not lift the middle back of the tongue towards the hard palate while pronouncing the consonant. First pronounce the hard consonant, and then start pronouncing the vowel. nine0003

English vowel examples

Got it? Now we turn to the formulation of the correct pronunciation of words in English. We set up a speech apparatus in the right position and start training:

Worse / WɜːS /

Girl / ɡɜːl /

Firm / Fɜːm /

FIRST / ˈFɜːST /

HURL / HɜːL /

LURK / LɜːK /

Curl / kɜːl/

bird /bɜːd/

world /wɜːld/

word /wɜːd/

sir /sɜː ^R /

Were / Wɜː ^R /

Heard / Hɜːd /

LEARN / LɜːN /

WORK /

Third / θɜːD /

NURSE / NɜːS /

STAR / STM ^RT /

Turn / Tɜːn /

Earth / ɜːθ /

Verb / Vɜːb /

Pearl / Pɜːl /

Haurt /

FIR / ˈFɜː ^R /

World / Wɜːm /

PURSE PURSE /pɜːs/

curse /kɜːs/

earl /ɜːl/

her /hɜː ^r /

burn /bɜːn/

Excellent! And now I’ll tell you about the difference in pronunciation performed by an American (I didn’t say it before, so as not to confuse). The American transcription looks like this:

firm - /f ɝ ːm/ (or /fɜrm/ as we have on Lingualeo).

This transcription of the English alphabet / ɝ / denotes a similar sound, but with retroflection, that is, an overtone / r / (follow the link and listen to two pronunciations of the word firm). For more information about the American version, see the video at the link. nine0003

In British pronunciation, the /r/ sound can only be heard at the junction of words when the next word begins with a vowel: si r A lec /sɜː r æ lɪk/.

to fix the result will help us with English tongue twisters for vowel sounds:

9000 G E Rman L EA RNERS L RN G E Rman W O RDS, T U Rkish L EA rners l ea rn T u rkish w o rds. nine0008
• AN EA RL GAVE P EA RL a F U R and A C IR CLET OF P EA RLS FOR H ER IR TY - F ST B IR .
• The F IR SK IR T IS D IR Tier THET IR D SH IR T, The F SH IR T IS D IR TIER TIR th ir dsk ir t.

I again pay attention to the differences in American pronunciation. There is practically no “short o” in AmE, and they pronounce the above words with the sound / a: / (we talked about it above) - not / nɑːt /. nine0017 a tch h o rrors o n TV.

At the end of , a line from the song . By the way, it was not so easy to find an example… This sound is short, and I wanted it to be heard in the song. But singers have the right to stretch even short sounds 🙂 Therefore, we take as an example a rather fast and rhythmic song “13 Little Dolls” by British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor. nine0003

Fight them hard then keep them safe
Those 13 little d o lls
One for each mood o f the day
Those 13 little d O LLS
CR O SS Youart and Try to Sleep LEAVE 1. 8, 910, 11, 12, 13 Little D O LLS

Sound / ɔː / - pronunciation of vowels in English

Sound / ɔː / pronounced in words Horse, Wall, Law etc.

The sound is similar in articulation to the previous /ɒ/ – the tongue moves back and down, BUT the back of the tongue is raised to half the distance (and in the previous sound the root of the tongue is relaxed), so in this sound you feel like “ closes” hole at the throat. The lips are drawn into a small hole, as if you are planning to kiss someone. The sound is long. nine0003

That is, in fact, we pronounce a very, very deep sound /o/, but the position of the lips, as for the sound /y/.

Understanding the difference between these sounds is also important because changing the sound can change the meaning of the word:

cock /kɒk/ (rooster) – cork /kɔːk/ (bark, wine cork) pɒt/ (pot) - port /pɔːt/ (port)

wad /wɒd/ (pack of something - banknotes, chewing gum) - ward /wɔːd/ (hospital ward)

The correct pronunciation of words in English

I hope you managed to catch the articulation of this sound. We move on to training in the words:

or /ɔː ^r /

All /ɔːl /

North /nɔː /

Lɔː /

Ball /Bɔːl /

Small /

STARE /STAɔː ^r /

horse /hɔːs/

saw /sɔː/

bought /bɔːt/

draw /drɔː/

walk /wɔːk/

CLAW / KLɔː /

Talk / Tɔːk /

Four / Fɔː ^R /

Door / Dɔː ^R /

BOOARD / BɔːD /

lɔːD /

FɔːTUGHT / FAUGHT / FEUGHT / FEUGHT / FACHT / FACHT / FAC SHORE / ʃɔː ^R /

Call / Kɔːl /

Course / KɔːS /

Floor / FLɔː ^R /

Warm / Wɔːm /

CHALK /

FOURTH / FOURTH / FOURTH / FAC ɔːl/

wall /wɔːl/

more /mɔː ^r /

thought /θɔːt/

nor /nɔː ^r /

court /kɔːt/

brought /brɔːt/

warn /wɔːn/

Now let's move on to tongue twisters:

• A LL P AU L'S D AU GHTERS WERE B O RN in C O RK, A LL W AU AU GHTERS WERE B O RN Yo rk.
• F OU R EXPL O RERS Expl O Re F O RTY W A TERF LLS, F O RTY O Rers Expl O RRE r w a terf a lls.
• D O Ra's D AU GHTER IS T A Ller spec O Ra's D AU GHTER, N O RAS D AU RAS O RTER THAND O RTERA DEN au ghter.