Long vowel sounds definition

What are the American English Long Vowel Sounds? — Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation

What is a long vowel sound?

Long vowel is the term used to refer to vowel sounds whose pronunciation is the same as its letter name. The five vowels of the English spelling system ('a', 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u') each have a corresponding long vowel sound /eɪ/, /i/, /ɑɪ/, /oʊ/, /yu/. Long vowels are generally the easiest vowels for non-native English speakers to distinguish and pronounce correctly.

It is easier to hear vowel sounds within words than it is to hear the sound alone. Listen to the following words to help learn to hear individual sounds.

long a /eɪ/: cake /keɪk/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

long e /i/: keep /kip/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

long i /ɑɪ/: bike/bɑɪk/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

long o /oʊ/: home /hoʊm/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

long u /yu/: cute /kyut/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

Introduction to two-sound vowels

A two-sound vowel is a vowel sound that includes a 'y sound' /y/or a 'w sound' /w/ in the pronunciation. Often, the /y/ or /w/ is only a minor part of the sound, but must be included for the sound to be pronounced fully. Two-sound vowels are known linguistically as diphthongs (pronounced as dip-thong or dif-thong).

In North American English, four of the five long vowel sounds are pronounced as two-sound vowels.

long a /eɪ/, ends in a brief /y/

long i /ɑɪ/, ends in a brief /y/

long o /oʊ/, ends in a brief /w/

long u /yu/, begins with a brief /y/

Note that /yu/ is essentially the /y/ plus the 'oo sound' /u/ and is the only vowel sound that will be preceded by the article a rather than an. Thinking of /yu/ to be a two-sound vowel helps to distinguish it from /u/ for learning purposes.

The Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) pattern

A spelling pattern that is true for all long vowel sounds is the Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) pattern. The VCe pattern states that when a single vowel is followed by a single consonant, then the letter 'e', the first vowel is pronounced as a long vowel sound and the letter 'e' is silent.

Vowel-consonant-e spelling examples

long a /eɪ/: late /leɪt/

long e /i/: delete /də lit/

long i /ɑɪ/: kite /kɑɪt/

long o /oʊ/: note /noʊt/

long u /yu/: cute /kyut/

Examples of Long Vowel Words

A long vowel is a vowel sound that is pronounced the same way as the name of the letter itself. For example, the long U sound is pronounced like "yoo," as would be the case in words like "lure" and "tube. " By contrast, the short U sound is pronounced more like "uh," as in words like "cub" and "tub."

Long vowel words, then, are words that contain a long vowel sound. It's important to note that the spelling of a word and the way it sounds don't always match up so perfectly. Words like "few" and "beauty" also contain the long U sound. Similarly, the long A sound in "bake" and "gate" can also be spelled like "ay" (as in "pay") or "ai" (as in "paid"), among other variations.

To understand this further, let's look at some more examples of long vowel words.

Long Vowel Words Chart

Now that you understand long vowels, check out this Vowel Words chart to find vowels with each of the long vowel pronounciation sounds:

Longvowelwordsexamples

Click to View & Download

Long Vowel Words in Sentences

A great way to understand how long vowel words work is to see them in action in full sentences.

Long A Words

The long A sound is featured in the words in bold.

Can you bake me a cake?
There's no way I'm going to pay for that.
At this rate, they'll never come home.
Jenny does it for the fame and fortune.
Did you hear about the raid on the executive's office?

Long E Words

The long E sound is featured in the words in bold.

To be or not to be. That is the question.
Pete plans to see her again soon.
The gymnast excels on the high beam.
The behavior was deemed inappropriate by the ethics board.
That was quite the scene at the deli.

Long I Words

The long I sound is featured in the words in bold.

Sara and I are going to the movies.
The pine needles are everywhere!
You'll find the jam in the bread aisle.
Take a right turn at the next intersection.
Everything is going to be just fine.

Long O Words

The long O sound is featured in the words in bold.

The Lone Ranger is a famous fictional character.
The country road isn't paved.
Herbert was so excited, he started jumping up and down.
Can you fetch me a hoe from the garden shed?
The tow truck arrived just in time.

Long U Words

The long U sound is featured in the words in bold.

The rude waitress still hasn't taken our order.
Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?
The Duke and Duchess of York visited recently.
With a queue like that, we can expect a very long wait.
There he is, right on cue.

Read and Read

The English language is filled with all sorts of confusing words and even letters, like when "y" works as a vowel. The word "read" can rhyme with "fed" (short E sound), but it can also rhyme with "seed" (long E sound), depending on which verb tense you're trying to use with "read." As you continue to brush up on your knowledge of vowels and how they work, why not study words that end in a silent E? There are a lot of them! For something more creative, check out these assonance examples too.

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. nine0003

Length of vowel sounds in English

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. nine0003

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.

Differences between long and short English sounds

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

How to learn to pronounce long and short English vowels

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

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. nine0003

13. Long and short vowels and consonants. Theories of the syllable.

Longitude- the length of the given sound with its quantity in time. Long and short vowels found in Russian speech in different phonetic terms: in the form plural n. "Siberians" vowel \ and / of the first two unstressed in 3 times shorter than the shock; under stress Russian vowels i. do not differ duration. Many vowel system I. distinguishes vowel length, forming pairs of vowels in duration. In English 6 short, 5 long and 1 semi-long. explosive nine0119 consonants and affricates are instantaneous sounds, they cannot be “pulled”, and vowels fricatives and all sonorants (stop-slits) are long-term, they can be pulled. However, there are also long explosive, and affricates, where longitude is obtained for opening delay count on exposure: "because, because". When two identical consonants or consonants, paired for deafness / sonority, at the junction morphemes or words in most cases a long consonant is pronounced denoted in transcription by two dots. Long (double) consonants in Russian can also be formed as a result of the loss of sounds in certain types of consonant combinations sounds (with a confluence of consonants). nine0119 Syllable - the smallest unit of pronunciation of sounds speech, uniting in its structure one or more sounds to which You can separate your speech with pauses. Word in speech is divided not into sounds, but into syllables. In speech, they are recognized and pronounced precisely syllables. Expiratory theory: the syllable is created by one moment of exhalation, push of exhaled air. How much syllables in a word, tremble so many times the flame of a candle when pronouncing a word; sonorous syllable theory as a combination of a more sonorous element with less sonorous; nine0125 muscular theory - a syllable as a segment of sound, uttered by a single muscular impulse tension of the pronunciation apparatus; Articulatory acoustic - syllable as minimal pronunciation unit of speech, the elements of which are closely interconnected, both acoustically, and articulatory. The syllables are divided into • open (end with syllabic vowels) • closed (end non-syllabic consonants) • semi-open (end sonorant consonants) • uncovered (begin vowel) • covered (begin with a consonant)

Speech phonetically represents a sound stream or chain of sounds. This chain breaks down into subordinate units which are special, purely phonetic units i., following one after another in time. • PHRASE is the largest phonetic unit representing a complete sentence, united by a special intonation structure and separated from other phrases pauses. • BEAT - part of a phrase (2 or several syllables), limited by pauses, united by one accent and intonation incompleteness. The beat can be word and combine the words into one single rhythm melodic group. clocked articulation underlies the accent verse. • Phonetic WORD - part speech tact, united by one accent; insignificant words, having their own stress, adjoin front or back to significant word, forming with it one phonetic word. • syllable - part of a phonetic word, consisting of one or more sounds combined into a phonetic whole. Syllables are the smallest units to which the speaking person can break your speech. syllables delimited by syllables. Syllabic sounds are called allowing maximum vocal energy. These are usually sonorous consonants and vowels. Sounds with a minimum of vocal energy, surrounding syllable-forming sound - usually noisy consonants. However, in others I there are syllables in which there is more than one vowel. nine0119 Diphthong- combination of two vowels within a syllable, and one vowel will be syllabic, the other is non-syllable. The syllable will be the one vowel that has more duration and on which it can fall accent, although the latter is optional, because they may occur in unstressed syllables. If the first vowel in a diphthong syllabic, then this is a descending diphthong, if the second, then it is ascending. In English. I. 8 diphthongs. Digraph, digram, diagram, double, two-digit a letter is a compound written sign, consisting of two letters and used to designate phonemes and their main options.