Vowel Sounds In English

Welcome to this FREE online lesson on vowel sounds in English.

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• List the 20 vowel sounds in English with examples.
• Pronounce and write the symbol of each vowel sound correctly.
• Identify vowel sounds in words.

Do you prefer watching the FULL video lesson instead? Click on the PLAY button below. Otherwise, keep scrolling.

“Sounds” are different from alphabets. There are 26 alphabets [5 vowels + 21 consonants] but there are 44 sounds in English.

How many vowel sounds are there in English?

Out of the 44 sounds in English Language, 24 are CONSONANT SOUNDS. Which means the remaining 20 are vowel sounds.

So there are 20 VOWEL SOUNDS in English Language which are easily divided into 2 major parts below.

• 12 MONOTHONGS
  • 7 short monothongs:
    • /ɪ/
    • /ʊ/
    • /ə/
    • /e/
    • /ɒ/
    • /ʌ/
    • /æ/
  • 5 long monothongs:
    • /iː/
    • /uː/
    • /ɑː/
    • /ɔː/
    • /ɜː/
• 8 DIPHTHONGS:
  • /eɪ/
  • /aɪ/
  • /ɔɪ/
  • /əʊ/
  • /aʊ/
  • /ɪə/
  • /eə/
  • /ʊə/.

What are Monothongs?

MONOTHONG means “one sound”.

• Mono = ‘one’ or ‘single’
• Thong = ‘sound’.

They are also called “Pure Vowel Sounds” because out of them are all other vowel sounds formed.

There are twelve (12) monothongs or pure vowel sounds in English and further divided into two.

SHORT vowel sounds

There are seven (7) short monothongs which are called “short” because their pronunciation is short and sharp.

Short vowel sounds do NOT have colon (:) after them.

Click on any of them below to see the full lesson with their pronunciation, word examples and practice questions.

• VOWEL SOUND /ɪ/

• VOWEL SOUND /ʊ/

• VOWEL SOUND /æ/

• VOWEL SOUND /ɒ/

• VOWEL SOUND /e/

• VOWEL SOUND /ʌ/

• VOWEL SOUND /ə/

LONG vowel sounds

There are five (5) long monothongs which are called “long” because their pronunciation is a bit stretched and relaxed.

You can always identify long vowel sounds by the colon (:) after them.

Click on any of them below to see the full lesson with their pronunciation, word examples and practice questions.

• VOWEL SOUND /i:/

• VOWEL SOUND /u:/

• VOWEL SOUND /ɑː/

• VOWEL SOUND /ɔː/

• VOWEL SOUND /ɜː/

HAPPY LEARNING.

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