Hello!

I hope this video will help you with your English pronunciation. In it, I am explaining the short and long pronunciations of the English vowels.

Here are the notes that you should refer to as you watch this video:

The sounds in this video are what is generally the case in English pronunciation. There are variations across countries (for example, in some areas in the north of England, you might hear the ‘u’ as ‘oo’, which might be how you pronounce it in your first language).

There are also some more vowels sounds and symbols, but this video focuses on the main short and long pronunciations of each English vowel.

Short: a e i o u 

•            International phonemic alphabet (IPA) symbols: /æ/ /e/  /I/  /ɒ/  /ʌ/
•            Pay particular attention to ‘a’ and ‘u’, which might be very different to how they’re pronounced 

                in your first language.

Examples:

a: at, cat

e: egg, went

i: in, interesting

o: on, off, orange

u: up, under

Long:  a e i o u 

•            Tip – the sound is the same as the name of the letter
•            IPA symbols: /eI/  /iː/  /aI/  /əʊ/  /juː/

Examples:

a: ate, Cate

e: eve, peace

i: ice, fine

o: open, phone

u: university, unit

More examples comparing short and long pronunciations for each letter:

a

at, mat, cat, apple, application, Andrew, ecstatic, tablet   

ate, mate, Cate, shape, wait, table

e

egg, excellent, sent, went, relent

eve, Steve, peace, believe, sleep

i

in, interesting, instruction, silver, sing

ice, fine, time, line, sublime

o

on, off, sock, shock, clock

over, open, ocean, tone, phone, zone

u

up, under, umbrella, understand, suction, brush

university, union, universal, uniform, unit, rejuvenate

I hope this helps!

Thank you,

English teacher Louise