Vowels

Oh those American vowels. My clients at Accent Master  tell me how challenging they are in our accent reduction classes.  They are trouble. In fact is it takes 15 phonetic symbols to represent all of the vowels in American English. The trouble really begins when you realize that there are only 5 alphabetical symbols for those same vowels!

In fact the most common vowel sound known as schwa and produced as "uh" is not represented by any of the alphabet letters. But it can be represented by almost any vowel letter.

Knowing these facts alone can help you listen more carefully and imitate what you hear.

Here are some tips:

/a/ or 'ah' can be written with a or o.
Hot
pot
mom
log
calm

A is produced as "aah"
hat
Pat
fat
rat

A is changed to "ay" when the silent E is added to the end of the word as in:
hate
fate
rate

e is produced as 'eh"
pet
let
set
met

the letter E can sound like "i" when there is a silent letter E at the end
Pete

/I/ said as "ih" can be written as i,y
six
if
milk
gym
myth

/U/ said as 'oo' can be written as 'oo' or 'u'
took
foot
full
push

And remember when two vowels go walking the first vowel does the talking
meat
treat
boat
moat

Writing and pronouncing do not match up in English.  Listen to the TV or to a conversation with your eyes closed.  Best is to read along while listening to a book, the newest Kindles have this feature which can be very helpful to English language learners. 

Good luck and post any questions you may have!

Lynn founder of
Accent Master