E N G L I S H S O U N D S

Here are the sounds of vowels and consonants in English.

They are divided in 3 categories: - vowels with 1 sound [ short ] ou [ : long ]
- vowels with 2 sounds (known as “diphtongs”)
- consonants

Each sound is written in phonetics with 3 examples.

V O W E L S
S H O R T L O N G

[I] fish / big / pig [i˘] queen / tree / people

[Q] apple / black / cat [A˘] car / scarf / fast

[U] book / cook / wolf [u˘] shoes / blue / two

[Å] dog / orange / not [ç˘] horse / small / born

[√] duck / fun / sun [E˘] bird / purple / girl

[´] banana / gorilla / doctor

[e] pen / red / bed

D I P H T O N G S
( = 2 s o u n d s )

[eI] cake / great / day [aU] mouse / brown / how

[I´] ear / beer / year [´U] boat / no / old

[aI] bike / night / fly [U´] tourist / poor / sure

[çI] boy / noise / toy [e´] hair / bear / care

C O N S O N A N T S
( a r e s i m i l a r t o t h e r e g u l a r a l p h a b e t e x c e p t f o r : )

[S] sheriff / shop / shoe [T] theatre / three / birthday

[tS] cheese / chips / chicken [D] mother / the / weather

[Z] treasure / garage [N] ring / king / jogging

[dZ] jumper / jeep / John [j] yoga / yellow / yes