Easy and difficult vowel sounds in English. As you may recall
from former years, English vowel sounds can be long /i:/ (heat, neat,
reach) or short /I/ (hit, knit, rich). Look at the chart below, the
sounds are divided into long and short. Can you distinguish them
correctly? Listen to the speaker and then try it yourself.
Long vowels
Short vowels
/hiːt/
/cɑːt/
/buːt/
/hɔːs/
/pɜːs/
/hɪt/
/ˈeɡzət/
/pet/
/cæt/
/hɒt/
/bʌd/
/bʊk/
Caso de estudio
Can you distinguish between a long vowel and a short vowel? Read on and then try our exercise.
According to experts, the English vowel sounds that are hard for Spanish students are:
seek/sick (/iː/ - /ɪ/),
cart/cot (/ɑː /- /ɒ/),
pool/pull (/uː/ - /ʊ/),
or,
part/pat/putt (/ɑː / - /æ/ - /ʌ/).
The reason is because Spanish has five pure vowels and five diphthongs, whereas, English has twelve pure vowels and eight diphthongs.
Share your pronunciation problems with your coursemates. Which sounds do you find easy? Which sounds do you find difficult? Go to
the forum and share your opinion and difficulties with the group. Are
you all having trouble with the same vowel sounds?
Now, listen to the speaker. In the following list, what word do you hear?
Unidad 1 - Tema 1 - Podcast número 7
1. sleep - slip
2. short - shot
3. heart - hat - hut
4. stack - start
5. spool - spill
6. four - full
7. pour - pool
8. sheet - shirt
The answers are:
1. slip
2. shot
3. heart
4. stack
5. spool
6. full
7. pour
8. shirt
How did you do? Don't worry, practise makes perfect! You'll get better in not time!
Do you need nore practise? Ship or Sheep is an online phonetic website. Visit it and have fun learning!
Take it easy with the pronunciation websites, DO NOT try to identify the sounds at once. A friendly word of advice, choose a pair, once you've mastered them go on to the next.
Perhaps you would like an explanation as well as the prounciation. Visit the BBC Pronunciation website and follow along with their videos.
Mastering sounds, rhythm and intonation will help you with your listening activities so take your time with these sections.
Caso de estudio