English Vowel Sounds (IPA)

Level: A2. English has only five vowel letters — a, e, i, o, u — but roughly twenty vowel sounds. The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) gives each sound its own symbol, so you can see exactly what to say even when the spelling hides it.

By the end of this page you can…

…recognise the main English vowel symbols in a dictionary, tell short from long vowels, and hear the difference in minimal pairs like ship and sheep.

Why vowels need the IPA

A vowel is a sound you make with an open vocal tract — air flows out freely, with no blocking from the lips or tongue. English spelling maps badly onto its vowels: the letter a alone stands for different sounds in cat, car, cake and about. Dictionaries solve this with the IPA, writing each sound between slashes, for example /kæt/ for cat.

The transcriptions here follow the British (RP-based) set used by the Cambridge Dictionary. Where the American pronunciation differs clearly, it is noted. Slashes / / mark the sounds, and a small raised ˈ before a syllable marks stress.

The three vowel groups

English vowels fall into three groups. Short vowels are quick; long vowels are held longer and are written with a length mark /ː/; diphthongs glide from one vowel position to another inside a single syllable.

The schwa: the most common sound

The schwa /ə/ is the short, weak vowel in an unstressed syllable. It is the single most frequent vowel in English because nearly every long word has at least one unstressed syllable that reduces to it: a in about /əˈbaʊt/, er in teacher /ˈtiː.tʃə/, o in today /təˈdeɪ/. The schwa never carries stress.

Minimal pairs: hear the difference

A minimal pair is two words that differ by exactly one sound. They are the best way to train your ear, because only the vowel changes.

How to say it

Three vowel contrasts cause English learners the most trouble:

• /iː/ vs /ɪ/ (sheep vs ship). For /iː/ stretch your lips into a wide smile and hold the sound; for /ɪ/ relax, open the jaw a little and keep it short. The length and tension both change.
• /æ/ vs /ʌ/ (cat vs cut). For /æ/ drop your jaw and spread the mouth wide; for /ʌ/ keep the mouth more neutral and central, like a short grunt.
• The schwa /ə/. Do not try to “pronounce the letter”. Relax the mouth completely and make the smallest, laziest vowel you can — that is the sound of almost every unstressed syllable.

British and American differences

Most vowels are shared, but a few differ in a predictable way:

• /ɒ/ → /ɑː/: British hot /hɒt/ is American /hɑːt/. American English has no short /ɒ/.
• The bath group: words like bath, dance, class use /ɑː/ in southern British English but /æ/ in American English.
• The letter r: British English is non-rhotic, so car is /kɑː/ with no /r/ sound; American English keeps it: /kɑːr/.
• /əʊ/ → /oʊ/: British go /ɡəʊ/ starts with a schwa-like sound; American go /ɡoʊ/ starts rounder.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

Quick recap before the quiz.

Next

• Next in pronunciation: English Consonant Sounds (IPA)
• Then: English Word Stress
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