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What are long vowels


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lesson #2. Long vowels | umma.ru

As already noted, the main feature of Arabic vowels, in comparison with Russian ones, is that they differ in terms of longitude and shortness of sound. Longitude and shortness of vowels in Arabic have a semantic difference. There are 6 vowel phonemes in Arabic. Of these, three are short: [a], [i], [y], which are indicated by vowels, and three are long: [a], [i], [y]. Arabic short phonemes [a], [i], [y] are similar to the corresponding Russian phonemes. As for long phonemes, they, while qualitatively coinciding with short ones, differ from the latter in a longer duration (about 2 times). To denote long vowels, the so-called weak letters are used:

Long vowel [a]

The main means of transmitting a long [a] is the combination of the letter "alif" (ا) with the vowel "fatha" over the previous letter: ـــَ ا.. For example:

قَالَ

This type of long vowel [a] is called “alif mamdud”, i. e. elongated "alif". Another means of conveying a long [a] in writing is the combination of the letter ى with the vowel “fatha” above the previous letter. This type of long [a] is called "alif maksura", i.e. shortened "alif". For example:

رَمَى

It should be borne in mind that if the combination of ا with fatha is used to convey [a] in all syllables of a word, then the combination of ى with fatha can only be used in the final syllable of the word. The lengthening of the long vowel [a] after the hamza (أَ + ا) is transmitted in the letter "alif" with a wavy line on top: (آ). For example:

Long vowel [and]

Long [and] is transmitted by a combination of the letter “yya” (ي) with the vowel “kasra” under the previous letter: ـــِ ي.. For example:

قِيلَ

Long vowel [y]

Long [y] is transmitted by combining the letter "wow" (و) with the vowel "damma" above the previous letter: ـــُ و.. For example:

قُوبِلَ

It should be noted that, along with the mentioned combination of letters and vowels, the condition for the formation of long vowels by weak letters ا ، و ، ي is the absence of vowels above them. Otherwise, they will be used as consonants. For example:

ظَبْيُ ، فَوْزُ َ0003

In some words of the Arabic language, when transmitting a long [a], "alif" is omitted. The missing alif is replaced by a vertical fatha. For example: instead of ذَالِكَ it is written ذٰلِكَ, instead of إِلٰهُ - إِلاَهُ. When the letter “lam” (ل) is combined with “caliph” (ا), the following ligature is formed: ⁃ when written independently: لا ⁃ when connected to the right: ـلا In our lessons, in the absence of vocalization above or below “alif”, it serves to transmission of a long vowel [a]. In the presence of voicing, it is a stand for hamza. Exercise No. 1 Read the following words paying attention to the pronunciation of the long vowel [y]:

، يَمُولُ ، يَسُوسُ ، يَدُوسُ

Exercise #2 Read the following words paying attention to the pronunciation of the long vowel [and]:

0003

، عَلِيمْ ، سَمِيعْ ، عَزِيزْ ، حَفِيظْ

، يَسِيلُ ، يَكِيلُ ، يَلْوِي ، يَكِيدُ

Exercise No.

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