Long and short vowel sounds symbols

What you need to know. 

– English diphthong vowels have two IPA symbols because they are made up of two mouth position.
– in other words, diphthong vowels are two short vowels joined together, they are also called double vowels.
– many non-native speakers make some English diphthong vowels as single vowels

Vowel Phonetic Symbol   &    IPA Examples in Words

/eɪ/     place /pleɪs/, late /leɪt/, dangerous /ˈdeɪn. dʒə.rəs/
/oʊ/    home /hoʊm/, phone /foʊn/, global /ˈɡloʊ.bəl/
/aʊ/    mouse /maʊs/, brown /braʊn/, accountant /əˈkaʊn.t̬ənt/
/ɪə/    clear /klɪə/, fear /fɪə/,  career /kəˈrɪə/
/eə/   care /keə/, wear /weə/, declare /dɪˈkleə/
/ɔɪ/    boy /bɔɪ/, toy /tɔɪ/, enjoyable /ɪnˈdʒɔɪ.jə.bəl/
/aɪ/    find /faɪnd/, bite /baɪt/, tiger  /ˈtaɪ.ɡə/
/ʊə/   tour /tʊə/, pure /pʊə/,  mature /məˈtʃʊə/

What are English Diphthong Vowels in the IPA? There are 8 IPA symbols for English Diphthong vowels. The IPA for English Diphthong vowels are: /eɪ/, /oʊ/, /aʊ/, /ɪə/, /eə/, /ɔɪ/, /aɪ/, /ʊə/.  

More English Vowels Examples -IPA Diphthong Vowels

Use the boxes below to revise and practise each of the English vowels phonetics for double vowels in English.

See the phonetic symbol for each vowel sound at the top of each box, see IPA vowel examples of it in 4 common English words, click to hear it pronounced and record your own pronunciation. 

ACHTUNG!

As you listen to the IPA examples, listen carefully to hear the two vowel sounds in each.  

Can you hear the two vowels?

Many people make a single vowel, instead of a double vowel. This happens because the English double vowel doesn’t exist in their first language. 

This makes many of their words unclear. For example, when they say ‘coat’ it sounds more like ‘cot’, when they say ‘note’ it sounds more like ‘not’, when they say ‘won’t’ it sounds more like ‘want’ – Video on pronouncing ‘won’t’ vs ‘want’. 

As you go through, feel the two positions in each double vowel.   

Click to below to hear English vowels exercises on double / diphthong English vowel pronunciation with English vowel phonetics. 

/aɪ/
light /laɪt/ like /laɪk/
rice /raɪs/  ripe /raɪp/

/eɪ/
late /leɪt/ lake /leɪk/
race /reɪs/ train /treɪn/

/ɔɪ/
boy /bɔɪ/
join /dʒɔɪn/ choice /tʃɔɪs/ 
noise/nɔɪs/

/aʊ/
about /əˈbaʊt/
 found /faʊnd/ house /haʊs/ down /daʊn/

/oʊ/
note /noʊt/ coke /koʊk/ hose /hoʊs/ phone /foʊn/

/ɪə/
hear /hɪə/ near /nɪə/
fear /fɪə/ beer /bɪə/

/eə/
hair /heə/ share /ʃeə/
pear /peə/ chair /tʃeə/

/ʊə/
 tour  /tʊə/ lure /lʊə/
cure /kʊə/ pure /pʊə/

in the dictionary.  

See an example of how diphthong vowels or double vowels are shown in dictionaries in the diagram below.
This IPA example is from the free Cambridge Online Dictionary. The Cambridge Online Dictionary is a reliable and free site that you can use to check the pronunciation of English words. 

It shows the IPA for American English and British English and you can click to hear the word pronounced in both American and British accents. 

See a screen shot of how English diphthong and double vowels are shown in the IPA in the dictionary below. I’ve labelled the marker for Word Stress in the IPA and also schwa, the most important weak vowel in English. 

Here is a clear English Vowel Sounds Chart with IPA Symbols. 

Many ESL speakers find this English Vowel Sounds Chart extremely helpful. 

English Vowels Sounds Chart pdf. 

Download English Vowel Sounds Chart PDF here

After your English vowels practice from today, you might be wondering why certain vowels are more difficult than others. Which vowels you find challengings depends on your first language. You can find out more about which vowels speakers of your first language find difficult and continue your English vowels practice with our free 5 day English Pronunciation Course, 

You’ll receive 5 emails full of excellent English pronunciation videos. Learn priority areas for clearer, better spoken English, record a clear professional voicemail greeting, English vowels exercises, improve your word stress, correct lots of commonly mispronounced words.

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And there you have it!

All the English Vowel Sounds IPA, clearly shown with each International Phonetic Alphabet Symbol. 

These English vowels exercises have hopefully helped you become more aware of which English vowel sounds you need to improve on for clearer, better spoken English. 

I hope the images and information in this article will help you understand the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for English Vowels and how to use the IPA to improve your pronunciation of vowel sounds in English.

The IPA is a powerful tool that can be seriously helpful to learners. 

Georgie's Tips For Using The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) To Improve Your Pronunciation:

Remember that even if you don't know every symbol you should still use the IPA for important information such as:  

- the /:/ tells you when there is a long vowel
- two symbols means it's a double or diphthong vowel 
- /'/ is for word stress and tells you the next syllable is stressed

All the best.  

x

Georgie 

by Georgie

Georgie Harding has assisted thousands of people from all over the world with improving their clarity and spoken English skills. A Speech Pathology degree (BAppSc(SpPath) and CELTA qualifications and over 15 years of experience providing 1:1, group and online training make Georgie a leader in her field.  

Georgie is the creator the world's leading English Pronunciation online courses that are tailored to the language background of the student and presents regularly at Universities.

If you've ever met Georgie or completed her award winning courses you'll know how passionate she is about helping people move forward with better spoken English and more confidence. 

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Long and short vowels in English

Longitude is one of the characteristics of a vowel sound, which shows the relative duration of its sound compared to other sounds.

Longitude can be positional and phonemic. In the first case, the duration of the vowel depends on the position in the word and stress, while this characteristic does not affect the meaning. The phonemic length of a vowel has a semantic function, that is, depending on the length of the sound, the meaning of the word changes.

In Russian, the length of vowel sounds does not affect the meaning of words and changes only depending on stress. In English, vowels differ not only in positional but also in phonemic length. This means that long and short sounds, similar in other characteristics, represent different phonemes. Words that differ only in these phonemes have different meanings: ship - sheep , fit - feet , pull - pool . Therefore, it is so important to pronounce long and short sounds correctly.

In transcription, long vowels are indicated with a colon: [i:], [α:], [ɔ:], [u:], [ә:]. In some cases, long vowels in an unstressed position are reduced and become semi-long, which in transcription is indicated by one dot from above: [α ].

The long vowels listed above are opposed to short vowels, forming the following pairs in English:

• [i:] - [ı]
• [uː] - [u]
• [ɔ:] - [ɒ]
• [α:] - [ʌ]
• [ә:] - [ə]

The pronunciation of long and short English vowels often causes difficulties for Russian learners of English, since in Russian vowels do not have phonemic longitude, and we are not used to distinguishing the length of a vowel sound by ear. We often do not hear the difference between long and short vowels when listening to English speech. It is still not clear how long you need to draw a sound when speaking, so very unnatural, or almost inaudible, or too long vowels are obtained. It is impossible to correctly pronounce short and long sounds so that a native speaker hears the difference, even if you diligently shorten short vowels and stretch out long ones.

Sometimes it seems that native speakers themselves do not know the difference between short and long sounds, they seem to pronounce them the same way - but they themselves understand each other. But it's not. Let's see what are the differences between long and short English vowels, how to learn to hear them and how to train their pronunciation.

It is logical to assume that if vowels are called long or short, they differ in sound length. This is the main difference between them, but not the only one. It is important to understand that long and short sounds have other differences, which consist in articulatory features. This means that the sounds are not just of different lengths, they are also different in sound. And most often it is these articulatory features that determine the length of the vowel sound: the duration of the sound depends on the position of the tongue and the tension of the vocal apparatus.

Long and short English vowels differ in such a characteristic as tension. Long vowels are tense, in English they are also called tense . When they are pronounced, the root of the tongue seems to be tense, under tension. The sound is pronounced, bright, rich, clear.

Short vowels are called lax – relaxed. The tongue in the region of the root is relaxed, the vowel sound is articulated quickly, easily, without additional effort, as if bursting. It turns out short, inconspicuous, faded and fuzzy.

Qualitative differences in sounds in different pairs of English vowels range from pronounced to almost imperceptible. It is easy to notice the difference between long and short sounds a: pay attention to how the words cart and cut are pronounced, they differ not only in duration, but also in sound. But the differences between long and short u are almost imperceptible: pool and pull sound very similar, only slightly different in length. The Scots generally pronounce them the same way, differing only in context.

In addition, the duration of the pronunciation of vowels is also affected by positional longitude - for example, stressed or unstressed position in a word. As a result, a short vowel sound in one word may sound longer than a long sound in another word.

Thus, it is not enough to rely only on the subjective duration of a vowel sound. All the features of short and long vowels described above must be taken into account when learning English. It remains to understand how to master the pronunciation of long and short sounds in practice.

The main mistake foreigners make when pronouncing long and short English sounds is focusing only on duration. But with this approach, it is intuitively incomprehensible where the boundary between a long and a short sound passes: you can’t measure the length of a sound with a stopwatch. When trying to artificially lengthen or shorten a vowel, the sounds are unnaturally short or drawn out.

To learn how to pronounce long and short English sounds, you need to forget about the usual terminology "long" and "short". Try not to think about the duration of the sound at all. To correctly pronounce long and short vowels, you need to focus on their articulation, and not on duration. If we correctly reproduce the pronunciation of the vowel, then the duration will turn out to be correct automatically. Remember that long vowels require more tension at the root of the tongue, while short ones are pronounced without additional effort, easily and without tension.

Pay attention to how native speakers pronounce vowels - don't watch how long they draw them out, but watch the pronunciation, the articulation, the quality of the sound. Repeat, imitate, practice. For practice, it is best to use video lessons or a conversation with a native speaker, since audio materials do not make it possible to see articulation.

It is best to train long and short sounds not separately, but as part of words. First, this way you will note the influence of positional longitude on the duration of the sound in specific examples. Secondly, just as words are best learned in context, sounds are also best learned in the environment.

Practice pronunciation of long and short vowels in pairs of words to notice the difference between sounds, for example:

• Sport – hot
• Arm-cut
• See-hit
• Food-put
• Fur – ago

When you learn how to pronounce long and short vowels correctly in English, it will become easy to distinguish between them in speech. When listening to speech, forget about the differences in duration, pay attention to the qualitative differences in sounds - how intensely the vowel is pronounced, how bright or faded it sounds, how pairs of sounds differ from each other, except for duration.

Long and short vowels in German: long and short sounds

Photo: suju / pixabay.com

So, voiceless and voiced consonants can form pairs. What about vowels? Of course, vowels cannot be voiceless or voiced, but they can be pronounced long or short and form pairs in longitude. Let's see how it works in German!

What are long and short vowels for?

In modern Russian and most Slavic languages, all vowels are pronounced short, and their lengthening may seem strange or even funny to us (for example, in Finnish or Estonian).

Long and short vowels are common in German and English. Their sound is not as noticeable as in the languages ​​​​from the example above, but it is extremely important in conversation and perception of oral speech. The thing is that two words that are completely different in meaning can differ in a single, long or briefly pronounced letter.

For example:

Long and short vowels in German: basic rules

There are a whole bunch of rules on this topic that have one thing in common: it seems incredible to fit them in your head and apply them. Let's try to figure it out so that you remember most of it the first time!

Long and short vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables

Stress/unstress can be used as a basic rule for determining vowel length. Stressed vowels are usually long, unstressed - short. This dependency seems perfect! In fact both long and short vowels can be stressed or unstressed. When determining the length of a vowel, not only the stress is important, but also the openness/closedness of the syllable.

Long and short vowels in open and closed syllables

Depending on what letter the syllable ends with, it can be classified into one of three categories:

1. Open - end in a vowel (Ma | ma, Pa | pa)
open" when changing the form of the word, for example in the plural (Bal | kon - Bal | ko | ne)
2. Closed - end in a consonant (Klas | se, Mund)

Vowels in open and conditionally closed syllables are usually long . In closed - short. To summarize:

• Stressed vowels in open and closed syllables are long, and unstressed vowels are short.
• Vowels in closed syllables, regardless of stress, are short.

Long vowels in German: when?

In order not to bother with special cases, let's take the rules with the "maximum guarantee". German vowels are always pronounced long:

1. When they are doubled: -aa-, -ee-, -oo- (-uu- and -ii- are rare, usually in compound words, double umlauts do not occur at all)
2. Before “mute “H” (such an “H” is not pronounced, but only gives a long vowel)
3. Before ß
4. In letter combinations -ie-, -ieh-
5. In monosyllabic, invariable words ending in “R”
6. Stressed open syllable
7. Stressed closed syllable

Good news! 4 rules out of 7 are easy to recognize in the text, and the rest after a little training will begin to be used intuitively.

Let's look at examples of how and when long German vowels are pronounced. In the table below, for each word, two Russian transcriptions will be given: correct and incorrect. Having said both, you can in practice compare the sound of words and feel in what situations a long vowel occurs.

Short vowels in German: when?

Long vowels are clear, let's move on to short ones. There are only three basic rules at work here. German vowels are read briefly:

1. In a closed syllable
2. If they are followed by two or more consonants (that is, before letter combinations like -ch-, -sch-, -ck-, doubled and any other consonants that follow each other after another)
3. Before the letter “X” - [x] (since “X” is read as [ks], formally this rule can be attributed to the previous one)

Consider short vowels with examples. As in the previous table, each word has one correct and one incorrect transcription.

Long and short vowels in monosyllabic words - a controversial case

In addition to monosyllabic words ending in "R" (with long vowels), there are many other short words in German in which only one consonant follows a vowel. It can be articles, adjectives, nouns and other parts of speech. For example: dem, gut, Lid, Typ.

On the one hand, these are closed syllables, which means that the vowels in them are short. But it's not! There is no need to memorize anything here, you just need to understand that in such words both short and long vowel sounds can occur.

How to pronounce long and short vowels?

There is no secret here! Long vowels are pronounced longer than short vowels. That's why "you're not speaking correctly because my [a:] is longer than yours" doesn't work here.😎

The pronunciation of long and short vowels depends entirely on the speech apparatus, accent, dialect used, and other little things. Someone likes to "pull" sounds and even short letters sound like long ones. Someone pronounces short vowels so abruptly that long vowels sound like ordinary ones.

In general, as you like. The most important thing is that the difference between long and short sounds can be heard in speech.

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