Tag Archives: English vowels

English Vowels. Schwa. (No Stress!)

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Photo by Christine Donaldson on Unsplash

The vowel Schwa was introduced previously in “What is Schwa?” and “The Sound of Schwa”, so if you are unfamiliar with Schwa, you can learn about it in those posts. This post is a little practice activity that comes from my Medium article: English Vowels – The Schwa (No Stress!).

Unstressed syllables often use a Schwa sound rather than a full clear vowel. Listen to the words below, to see if you can hear which vowels are schwa.

adjacent
almost
asleep		happen
hesitate
phonetic		prevalent
student
symbol

The Answers:

adjacent – 2nd syllable strong with two schwas: ədjacənt

almost – 1st syllable strong, and two clear vowels

asleep – 2nd syllable strong with one schwa: əsleep

happen – 1st syllable strong, one schwa: happən

hesitate – 1st syllable strongest, just one schwa: hesətate

phonetic – 2nd syllable strong, two schwas: phənetəc

prevalent – 1st syllable strong, two schwas: prevələnt

student – 1st syllable strong, one schwa: studənt

symbol – 1st syllable strong, one schwa: symbəl

If you like this practice, there are two longer articles (with audio) about Schwa on my new Patreon page! Patreon tiers range from $2 to $100 USD per month and support my mission to create a comprehensive English pronunciation learning platform!! Come join my English pronunciation learning community on Patreon!

English Vowels. The Pair “OW” – Do You Know How?

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What is the sound of the vowels in “know” and “how”? Are they the same? Words like these are often mispronounced because, even though they are spelled similarly, their pronunciation is actually different!

Two Options for “OW”

These are the two sounds:
>> Long-O (as in “go”) – The word “know” sounds exactly the same as the word “no”!
>> Vowel /aw/ (or IPA /au/) – This is like the word “wow” or “house”.

First, the Non-Predictable Groups

These two groups of words are not predictable and simply need to be memorized.

Long-O (as in “go”)Vowel /aw/ (as in “wow”)
blow
bowl
crow
flow
glow
grow
know
low
owe		own
row
show
slow
snow
stow
throw
tow
allow
brow
chow
cow
endow
how
meow
now
owl
ow!
plow
pow
prow
vow
wow
yow

When you know the correct sound for those words, then you will also know the correct sound for any words that are built from them, such as: bowling, growth, anyhow, owlet…

Second, the Predictable Groups

All other words follow a clear pattern, depending on whether “OW” is at the end of the word, or in the middle of the word. Here are just a few examples; there are many more that fit these two categories, and are easily predictable.

“-OW” at the end“-OW-“ in the middle
Long-O (as in “go”)Vowel /aw/ (as in “wow”)
borrow
follow
meadow
mellow		narrow
shadow
swallow
window		brown
crowd
frown
growl		browse
drowsy
flower
vowel

Again, when larger words are built with these kinds of words, they keep their original sound: follower, shadowy, brownish, flowery…

EXCEPTION! One word, “know” changes sound when it forms the word “knowledge”.

You can find a longer article on this topic on Medium, with additional examples plus some oddball words that use both sounds that are important to know about. Check it out!!

English Vowels. The Easy Pair: “AU” (Ahhh!!)

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This is the audio for the list the examples from my article on this topic on Medium. You can also find the full article with audio on my Patreon page.

Here are some common words with “AU”. (Remember, the “U” has no sound!)

auction
audio
audit
augment
aunt
author
auto
autumn
caught
cause		caution
clause
exhaust
faucet
fauna
flaunt
fraud
gauze
haul
haunt		launch
laundry
naughty
nausea
pause
sauce
sausage
taunt
trauma
vault

English Vowels. Two Sounds for Long-U? Who Knew?

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Here is audio for some of the examples in my article on this topic on Medium.

Long-U2 /uw/

  • Long-U2 is used after consonants that are made with the front part of the tongue.
  • For English, these consonants are: T / D / S / Z / L / R / TH / SH / CH / J.
    Some examples are: tube / duty / clue / suit / rule / enthused / June.
  • Sometimes this vowel sound has other spelling patterns:
    >> “EW”, “EU”: dew / chew / blew / flew / deuce / sleuth
    >> “OO”: choose / soon / zoom / shoot / loose / mood / cool

Long-U1 /yuw/

  • Long-U1 is used for all other contexts. That means after any consonant sound that is NOT made with the front part of the tongue.
  • For English, those consonants are: P / B / F / V / M / C (K) / G / H.
    Some examples are: pupil / bugle / fuel / music / cube / argue / huge.
  • In addition, “other contexts” also includes when Long-U is the first letter of a word.
    For example: use / union / unit.
  • Some alternative spellings are:
    >> “EW”, “IEW”, “EU”: few / mew / view / feud / eulogy / eucalyptus

NOTE—

Words with “N” are not predictable, so they need to be learned individually. When you see a new word that has “N” before Long-U, just remember to check how to say it.

  • Some that always use Long-U1 are: annual / continue / genuine / granule / innuendo / January / manual / manufacture / menu / minuet / monument / venue. These all sound odd if they are pronounced with Long-U2.
  • Some examples with Long-U2 are: avenue / manure / nuance / nude / nucleus / numeric / new / news. (Some of these can also be pronounced with Long-U1, but that makes them sound more old-style.)

Try It!  

Using the patterns explained above, you now can figure out how the Long-U should be pronounced in these words, even if some of the words are unfamiliar for you. (You can find the answers are at the bottom of this post.)

astute
deputy
duplex
elude
fusion		humic
intrude
jute
mule
nebula		ocular
sumac
urine
zucchini  

Exciting news!

There is a supplementary lesson on this topic with more information and practice activities on my Patreon page! You can join my English pronunciation learning community on Patreon! Patreon tiers range from $2 to $100 USD per month and support the creation of a comprehensive English pronunciation learning platform!! Come and learn, get help, and interact — I hope to see you there!

ANSWERS to “Try It!”

Long-U1Long-U2
deputy / fusion
humic / mule
nebula / ocular / urine		astute / duplex
elude / intrude
jute / sumac / zucchini

Sell or Sale? Practice Exercises! Long-A and Short-e

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This is a follow up to my post “Sell or Sale?” There is also an extended version article on this topic on Medium, plus a longer version of these Practice Exercises on my Patreon page!!

Photo by Adam Kring on Unsplash

Listening and speaking practice with word pairs.

Practice 1.  Listen and imitate both words below.

Practice 2.  Listen and guess: You will hear just one of the words – which one do you hear?
(The answers are at the bottom, below the image)

1. based/baste — best
2. braid – bread
3. fail — fell
4. gate — get
5. jail — gel
6. late — let  		7.  lace — less
8.  main/mane — men
9.  pain — pen
10. raced — rest
11. rake — wreck
12. raid/rayed — red		13. taste — test
14. take – tech
15. wait — wet
16. wane — when
17. waste/waist — west
18. whale/wail — well

ANSWERS for Practice 2

1. based/baste
2. bread
3. fail
4. gate
5. gel
6. late		7.  less
8.  men
9.  pain
10. rest
11. wreck
12. raid/rayed		13. taste
14. tech
15. wait
16. wane
17. waste/waist
18. well