I mean.. In RP, there are 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs make up for total of 20 vowels. Not to mention the semi vowels, w and j which when combined with the vowels, create another set of umm..semi-vowel like sounds each of their own. (another 40 semi-vowel like sounds!)
So it makes me think, surely you can't recognised all of them as seperate vowels especially when there are only 5 vowel characters in English alphabet.
Well... I find it really hard sometimes.. especially schwa vs /o/ or even /^/
It's also very difficult to pick out diphthongs from a fast spoken sentences..
Then.. do you think it's all right to think that there are 6 (a: e I: o: u: and ^) major vowels in English (for the alphabet A E I O oo U) and every other vowels are..variants of them?
I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying some vowels seem to be pronounced distinctly wether it's stressed or not while some vowels tend to lose its integrity and become very vague..
Seems to me, some vowels are there to make up the word meaning while some vowels are just there to fill the space and doesn't really care if it's not pronounced as it's supposed to be.
So, is it necessary to study each and every vowel as seperate and distinct sounds which when changed to some other vowel makes the word sounds like different word?
Or should I just concentrate on major vowels and terat the others as.. weaker form the the major ones..
Or is it just..simply stupid idea and I need to get cracking on the vowel sounds until I'm more comfortable with them. :(
I don't know..
Help.. :)
Hi! I'm a native speaker of English. Today I am visiting this discussion forum to show my Romance language knowledge.
A New English Spelling Solution
-ai- / -ay / -a- as in faith / cay / apron / a
-ee- / -e / -e- as in seed / me / fever / e
-ei- / -y / -i- as in heist / sky / fiber / i
-oa- / -o / -o- as in load / no / opponent / o
-eu- / -ew / -u- as in feud / new / student / u
----^-----^-----^------^------^-------^-------^--------^--------
-a- as in bad
-e- as in bed
-i- as in bid
-o- as in bod
-u- as in bud
----^-----^-----^------^------^-------^-------^--------^--------
sorry Pedro but I can't see how you answered my question though..
Also.. I can't quite understand the concept of diphthong and how they differ from two monophthongs pronounced in a series.. and why certain combinations of vowels can't be diphthongs like.. Iu, @I or something..
The number of phonemes in the English language both vowel and consonant but especially vowel phonemes depends on your accent. The Scots have [K] in ''loch'' and the Welsh have a voiceless ''l'' [L]. So, they have one more phoneme than the rest of us.
Quote-''A New English Spelling Solution
''-ai- / -ay / -a- as in faith / cay / apron / a
-ee- / -e / -e- as in seed / me / fever / e
-ei- / -y / -i- as in heist / sky / fiber / i
-oa- / -o / -o- as in load / no / opponent / o
-eu- / -ew / -u- as in feud / new / student / u
----^-----^-----^------^------^-------^-------^--------^--------
-a- as in bad
-e- as in bed
-i- as in bid
-o- as in bod
-u- as in bud''
There are definitely more than just ten vowel phonemes in English. Your ten phonemes listed are not the only vowel phonemes in English.
English sounds are very hard to describe and the spelling doesn't help the foreigner by way of precision. E.g. The schwa between B and L in "able" sounds different to the schwa between N and T in "couldn't" and different again between S and P in "suppose". Now you're thinking: well they all use a schwa which is a single sound element but this guy says they have 3 different sounds! I think these 3 here are a weaker form of major vowel sounds when stressed fully and they're all compounded with "e" in "her" (they all share that e in common).
The other problem with English pronunciation is that most vowels seem to be diphthongised where you don't expect. Many vowels are compounds of others so that might help you, but at the end of the day you'll have to learn each sound independently. Otherwise your speech is lagged each time you reflect, by telegraphing 1 or 2 sounds to produce another.
Anwyay it's probably not worth all the effort to attain that degree of precision, otherwise you'd get a speech trainer.
''English sounds are very hard to describe and the spelling doesn't help the foreigner by way of precision. E.g. The schwa between B and L in "able" sounds different to the schwa between N and T in "couldn't" and different again between S and P in "suppose". Now you're thinking: well they all use a schwa which is a single sound element but this guy says they have 3 different sounds! I think these 3 here are a weaker form of major vowel sounds when stressed fully and they're all compounded with "e" in "her" (they all share that e in common).''
They're the same phoneme but different phones.
The most common consonant phonemes and the rarest consonant phoneme.
''The most common consonants are /p/, /t/, /k/. Not all languages have these; the Hawai'ian language lacks /t/, and the Mohawk language lacks /p/, but all known languages have at least two of the three. If one of the three is missing, the language will have /?/ (glottal stop).
Possibly the rarest sound is the one represented by the "ř" letter found in the Czeck language and it appears to be unique to the language.''
So, almost anyone that is not a Native speaker of the Czeck language would have a hard time pronounce the ''ř'' sound.
Let me see if now you understand what you mean for me. Thanks for reading my criterion. Approximately I don't know. English vowel sounds have a lot of combination. I'm fascinated in visiting this website page forum.
-oo- / -ue as in food / glue
-(wau)- as in good / hook / foot / wolf / woman
-oi- / -oy as in foil / coy
-ou- / -ow as in loud / now
In certain dictionaries the accents for pronunciation
police as / pòllees / second syllable stress
baboon as / bàbboon / second syllable stress
promise as / prômmis / first syllable stress
dad as / dad / simple syllable stress
auto as / autò / first syllable stress
Romance languages use diacritical marks as ^, `, and ´. If English had these diacritical marks, nobody would speak wrong sometimes.
Supposed Short Vowels
-a- as in bad
-e- as in bed
-i- as in bid
-o- as in bod
-u- as in bud
Combined Long Vowels
-ai- / -ay / -a- as in faith / cay / apron / a
-ee- / -e / -e- as in seed / me / fever / e
-ei- / -y / -i- as in heist / sky / fiber / i
-oa- / -o / -o- as in load / no / opponent / o
-eu- / -ew / -u- as in feud / new / student / u
These words have the same form of "ough" but not the same sound.
though
dough
cough
tough
hiccough
tough
through
plough
It's complicated to explain the motive "ough" is a weird combination.
Paul M,
From a phonemic point of view you can consider the semivowels (/y/, /w/ and /W/) to be consonants. Thus you don't need to go haywire with your vowel list. However, when it comes to diphthongs, you've just got to cop them. They cannot be considered to be combinations of short vowels. If you have a look at this site you might get an idea of what I mean. Click on the vowel charts half way down the page.
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/ausenglish/auseng_vowels.html
WARNING
It seems that Pedro is Emmanuel is Willy is Immanuel is "Geofrey Chaucer" is "William Shakespear" is trying to pass himself off as a native speaker when is is not. Nobody (but him) pronounces "foot" like they'd pronounce "fwaut".
Thanks Jim.
I used to think that diphthongs are the most frequently used sets of two monophthongs spoken in a very fast way..
I had a look at the chart.
I get the impression that..diphthongs are.. long vowels.. with two not so quiet monophthongish sound puts together so that they sound like one?
So.. am I right to think.. that there aren't other diphthongs like.. /əɪ/ /ɒɪ/ /ɑʌ/ /æɪ/ and so on.. since it's very hard to make those sound?
Pedro Willy Emmanuel,
That you are no native speaker is as plain as the nose on my face. Perhaps he was the only teacher in that school district. I don't need any Encarta dictionary nor do I need the childhood recollection's of your former ESL teacher. I know how the word is pronounced. I've heard it pronounced by native speakers in all manner of accents. It's /fut/ as you will find in every English dictionary ever pubilshed. If you hear any different, your ears just need a little fine-tuning before they adjust to English. According to English spelling rules "fwaut" should be pronounced /fwo:t/.
I suppose you can look at vowels and consonants from three different angles: the phonetic, the phonological and the orthographic angles.
Orthographically speaking there are five vowel letters and twenty-one consonant letters. This, of course, isn't enough to represent all the vowels in English so a number of different spelling rules are used. One common thing you find is the digraph and another is the magic "e". Since using these two rules you can produce /ju:/ (e.g. "ue", "eu", "ew", "u" + magic "e"), orthographically you could think of this as a vowel (maybe).
Phonologically speaking though, /j/ is considered to be a consonant in English. Phonology looks at how the sounds are used in a language. Phonology focuses on phonemes. In English the semi-vowels are phonological consonants. Gotta go.
For a phoneme to be a phonological consonant is for it to be used as a consonant in the language. This is how /j/ and /w/ (and /W/ for those who use it) are used in English.
Phonetics looks at exactly how the sounds are pronounced. What phonetics deals with are phones rather than phonemes. Those charts you find by following the link I posted above are phonetic charts of the vowel sounds in five different dialects.
Phonetically there are three distinct kinds of vowel used in English: the short vowel, the long vowel and the diphthong. The short vowel is the simplest kind of vowel: it's pronounced quickly and your mouth doesn't change shape whilst this is happening. The long vowel is similar, the difference being that it takes longer to pronounce it. Short and long vowels are monophthongs.
Diphthongs are a different story: your mouth glide from one shape to another. This gliding motion is what diphthongs are all about. Generally speaking, the first part of the diphthong (at least in English) is more prominant.
What phone any given phoneme correlates to depends on which accent you're talking about. Consider the vowel in "paid" and "bay". Using Antimoon's alphabet we can phonemically transcribe it as /ei/. Now, go have a look at the vowel charts I've mentioned.
In the Australian/New Zealand accents /ei/ is pronounced [æI] (In IPA)*.
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/AusE_Diphthongs.html
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/NZE_Diphthongs.html
In RP and midwestern US /ei/ is pronounced [eI].
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/RPE_Diphthongs.html
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/USE_Diphthongs.html
In California /ei/ is not even a diphthong: it's pronounced [e:].
http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/units/ling210-901/phonetics/vowelgraphs/USE_Monophthongs.html
* I'm using IPA in square brackets, [ ], for phonetic transcription and Antimoon's alphabet in slashes, / /, for phomenic transcription. Don't confuse [e:] and /e:/: by [e:] I mean a long version of [e] not Antimoon's /e:/ as in "turn" = /te:(r)n/.
Some people say that there are 39 phonemes in English, Is that true?