Do you know the total number of different vowel sounds in English? Beginners often think the answer is “five”, because there are five vowel letters in the alphabet. Of course, anyone familiar with this blog already knows that each vowel letter has at least one Long-vowel and one Short-vowel sound. So is it ten vowels… Read More Overview of Vowels
Each vowel letter of English uses three or four different vowel sounds, but there is something unique about the letter “I” — it shares its sounds with the letter “Y”. They are sort of like “twins”. Whenever the letter “Y” is acting as a vowel, it uses the same sounds as “I”. There are three… Read More The Sounds of I
Six thick thistle sticks. Six thick thistle sticks. Six thick thistle sticks. This tongue-twister is good for practicing 2 things: 1. Short-i. In all of these words, the [i] uses the Short-i sound. The key to Short-i is to relax your tongue so that it doesn’t sound like Long-E (see This or These ). 2. “TH”. Be… Read More A tongue-twister: Thistle sticks
Distinguishing between Short-i and Long-E is difficult for many students (the difference is explained in “This or These?”), but it’s a good idea to be extra careful with this vowel distinction — there are several frequently used words of English with the Short-i sound that could be confused with similar sounding words with Long-E. The words below are from… Read More Short-i in Frequent Words
“Do you mean 1 or more than 1?” Have you ever been asked a question like that after trying to say something with the word “this” or “these”? If so, you’re not alone. It can be hard to clearly pronounce these two words. The primary difference between “this” and “these” is the vowel sound, and that’s… Read More This or These?
