What is the short vowel sound

Learn About English Short Vowel Pronunciation — Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation

The term short vowel is used to refer to the sounds that most often correspond to the letters 'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u' when the vowel occurs individually between consonants (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant, or CVC pattern). It is important to note that the term short is not referring to the length of time the vowel sound is pronounced—it is merely a label.

When learning the common spellings of vowel sounds, note that long vowels--not short vowels--often have a silent 'e' at the end of a word (see the long vowel VCe pattern).

Listen to the following sounds and words for to become familiar with pronouncing these challenging sounds.

short a /æ/: cat /kæt/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

short e /ɛ/: bed /bɛd/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

short i /ɪ/: sit /sɪt/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

short o /ɑ/: top /tɑp/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

short u /ʌ/: sun /sʌn/ (pronounce it, spell it, practice it)

All of the short vowel key words use the Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) pattern. The CVC pattern states that when a single vowel is between two consonants, the vowel is pronounced as a short vowel sound (if the letter 'e' follows the second consonant, the vowel will be pronounced as a long vowel sound due to the Vowel-Consonant-e pattern).

Additionally, when a vowel is pronounced with a short vowel sound, it may be followed by two consonants. Both consonants are not necessary for short vowel identification purposes, but do often offer an additional clue that the particular sound in that instance is a short vowel sound.

The CVC pattern still applies when a word begins with a vowel sound and is followed by one or more consonants.

Consonant-vowel-consonant spelling examples

short a /æ/: back /bæk/, at /æt/

short e /ɛ/: bend /bɛnd/, end /ɛnd/

short i /ɪ/: sick /sɪk/, it /ɪt/

short o /ɑ/: lock /lɑk/, opt /ɑpt/

short u /ʌ/: such /sʌʧ/, us /ʌs/

It must be remembered when applying spelling patterns to English pronunciation there is the possibility that two or more pronunciations may have the same spelling. For instance, when the letter 'o' is between two consonants there are three potential pronunciations: 'short o' (top), 'long o' (most), and 'aw sound' (dog). Consulting a dictionary is the only way to be certain of the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word.

Short vowels video — Pronuncian: American English Pronunciation

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Welcome to Seattle Learning Academy's video pronunciation series.

Of the 26 letters of the alphabet, 5 letters--a, e, i, o, and u--are considered vowels. Those 5 letters (a, e, i, o, and u--plus the letters w, y, and gh) are used in the spelling of the 15 vowel sounds of English.

To make the 15 vowel sounds easier to learn, we break them into the categories of

• long vowels
• short vowels
• and the "other" vowels

When talking about the sounds of English, I'll use a name (such as long a or short a), and the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol.

We're including the names for sounds because non-native English speakers often can't hear the difference between sounds. For instance, (long e) and (short i)--that was the long e sound and the short i sound--or (short e) and (short u)--the short e and short u sound--are easily confused. So we use the sound's name, long e, short i, short e, and short u, and not just the sound itself (long e, short i, short e, short u).

We include the symbols because that's what pronunciation dictionaries use, and those specialized dictionaries can be very helpful when talking about pronunciation.

Today, we're going to talk about the 5 short vowel sounds and the most common spelling pattern of those sounds.

Before we begin, let me clarify that short vowel sounds aren't said for less time than long vowel sounds, though it certainly would be convenient if that were the case. These are just names historically given to these sounds.

The 5 short vowel sounds are:

1. short a: /æ/ cat
2. short e: /ɛ/ bed
3. short i: /ɪ/ sit
4. short o: /ɑ/ top
5. short u: /ʌ/ sun

We begin the study of vowel sound pronunciation by using key words. The five words I just used as examples are key words for the short vowel sounds. All 5 of our short vowel key words--cat, bed, sit, top, and sun--follow the most common phonetic pattern for short vowel sounds.

Phonetics is the connection between letters and sounds. It's the relationship between a word's spelling and its pronunciation. Our short vowel key words follow the consonant-vowel-consonant phonetic pattern. When a vowel occurs alone between two consonants we can expect a short vowel sound.

In the word 'cat,' c-a-t, the vowel letter a is between two consonants, the 'c' and the 't. ' It isn't surprising, then, that the word 'cat' is pronounced with a /æ/ sound (/æ/).

If a word begins with a vowel letter that's followed by one or more consonants, we can still expect a short vowel sound pronunciation. If I take the 'c' off of the word 'cat,' I get the word 'at,' still pronounced with a short vowel sound.

If there's only one consonant after the vowel, and that consonant is followed by the letter 'e,' the formula changes, and we can expect a long vowel sound instead. For instance, if I take the word 'hat' h-a-t, and add the letter e I'll get the word 'hate' instead. The change in pronunciation from the word 'hat' to the word 'hate' is caused by the addition of the letter 'e.'

While common phonetic patterns like consonant-vowel-consonant (as in the word 'hat') and vowel-consonant-e (as in the word 'hate') and can help learners understand the pronunciation of English words, individual spelling patterns often exist for each sound.

There are also words that aren't pronounced in a way that we'd expect based on their spelling. We call these non-phonetic words. Common phonetic patterns and non-phonetic words are covered in each sound's individual video lesson.

Now that you know what the five short vowel sounds are, and their common phonetic pattern, it's worth studying each sound individually.

Thank you for watching this Seattle Learning Academy video lesson.

EXIT: (short a, short e, short i, short o, short u) cat, bed, sit, top, sun.

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.

Sounds in English: pronunciation, transcription 🗣️

It happens that you speak English with a foreigner, but he does not understand you. And then you find out that the letter “a” alone can be pronounced in six different ways. We understand English sounds in order to sound correctly and speak the same language with foreigners.

In English, the number of words that are not pronounced at all as they are written is very high - this is the result of historical changes and the standardization of written English in the 17th century. Knowing how English sounds are read, you can almost always read even the most intricate word.

The English alphabet has 26 letters, 20 vowels and 23 consonants. The more you delve into the English language, the more difficult words you will meet along the way. The science of phonetics will come in handy here, just in time. And we will share life hacks on the study of this topic.

Transcription of English sounds

In order to study all possible variations of sounds, linguists have developed an alphabet that contains special characters. This alphabet was called International Phonetic Alphabet (International Phonetic Alphabet).

It is these characters that are used in modern transcriptions of English words. Transcription, by the way, is a graphic representation of sounds. Indicate the transcription in square brackets.

Let's look at the examples below how one letter can be read in two different ways. The difference in pronunciation can depend on the type of syllable, the position of the letter in the word, and whether the vowel is stressed.

• In the word type (print/type), the letter y is in an open syllable and therefore reads like [aɪ].
• In the word copy (copy / copy), the letter y is in an unstressed syllable at the end of the word and therefore reads like [i].

However, it is worth trying to learn the pronunciation of sounds and various combinations of sounds. There is no division into short and long consonants in Russian. In English, the incorrect pronunciation of such vowels leads to significant changes in the meaning of the word.

So, for example, confusing the short and long sound [i] (read as “and” in the Russian word “game”), you can accidentally say “I boarded a sheep” - I boarded a sheep [ʃ iː p], not "I boarded a ship" - I boarded a ship [ʃ ɪ p].

English proficiency test

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General Table of English Consonants and Vowels (IPA)

Below is a table of all known English phonemes. The vowels are in the gray area and the consonants are in the yellow area. Short and long vowels are indicated on a light gray background, and diphthongs - sounds consisting of two elements - are located on a dark gray background.

All consonants are located on a yellow background and differ in font color. Voiceless consonants ( voiceless/unvoiced ) are marked in gray, and voiced ones ( voiced ) - black.

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Classification of sounds in English

In English, sounds are divided into two groups: vowels and consonants. Let's take a look at them.

Another effective way to quickly memorize English sounds is to sign up for English lessons for children 8 years old online at Skysmart School.

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Vowel sounds of the English language

From the school curriculum of the Russian language, we remember that the main characteristic of vowel sounds is their melodiousness. This is due to the fact that when pronouncing a vowel sound, the air passing through the vocal cords vibrates and the sound freely leaves the oral cavity without encountering any obstacles in its path. Here is the rule for pronunciation of vowels:

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