Listening & Speaking I - Part 1: Vowels & Diphthongs

PART 1: Vowels & Diphthongs (IPA)

Hello there dear readers. Today, I would like to introduce to you guys one of my favourite subjects while I was in Asasi TESL UiTM - Listening & Speaking. As you all may know, this subject is classified as one of the four core subjects for TESL students, and they are compulsory to be studied throughout the programme.

In this part, however, I will introduce to you the subject that I learned in the first semester. It is simple to say that it is the basic of the subject and you'll be using it a lot as you go through both semesters. Without further due, here we go!

Listening & Speaking, as the name suggests, consists of two main skills of English speakers - listening and speaking. In this part, you will learn about the speaking part, especially on the pronunciations. Bear in mind that in TESL, you will be required to learn English the native speakers way or British accent. No American accents for the pronunciation because we are following the UK Revised Pronunciation rule. Isn't that exciting? To learn how to speak like those Brits people. XD

But first, you will have to learn a new set of alphabets called the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. These letters represents how each Roman letters and words are pronounced. There are three types of phonemic letters in IPA: vowels, diphthongs and consonants.

For vowels, they are divided into two types:

Short vowels:	Long vowels:
/ʊ/ pronounced as 'u' as in 'put'	/u:/ pronounced as 'oo' as in 'two'
/ɒ/ pronounced as 'aw' as in 'hot'	/ɔ:/ pronounced as 'aaw' as in 'ball'
/ɪ/ pronounced as 'i' as in 'sit'	/i:/ pronounced as 'ee' as in 'green'
/ə/ pronounced as 'er' as in 'under'	/ɜ:/ pronounced as 'err' as in 'word'
/ʌ/ pronounced as 'ah' as in 'cut'	/ɑ:/ pronounced as 'aah' as in 'father'
/e/ pronounced as 'e' as in 'desk'
/æ/ pronounced as 'ae' as in 'man'

As you can see, the long vowels are vowels that produce longer sounds than the corresponding short vowels. Short vowels are pronounced quickly and... well, short, while long vowels are pronounced longer with 2 harkats.

*For transcription (the process of writing the words according to phonemic alphabets or IPA), you have to include the slash signs (I don't know the correct terms of it ^^") which are: / ..... /. This is to indicate that this is a transcription and you have transcribed the word according to IPA.


PRACTICE

Try pronouncing these words correctly:
(short vowels)

/ʊ/ - put , book , look , cook , good , pull , push

/ɒ/ - hot , orange , watch , stop , got , cough , not , long

/ɪ/ - bill , fill , will , spill , till , lift , lit , tin , kill , spin , sit

/ə/ - under , banana , comma , arrive , attack , again , another

/ʌ/ - umbrella , up , club , gun , luck , duck , mud , tuck

/e/ - desk , bell , tell , well , spell , left , let , red , ten

/æ/ - man , stand , jazz , cat , bag , fact , black , jam


*To differentiate the sound between /e/ and /æ/, make sure when you pronounce words with /æ/ sound, your mouth gets bigger compared to words with /e/ sound.


Now, try pronouncing these words correctly:
(long vowels)

/u:/ - two , food , fruit , blue , improve , June

/ɔ:/ - four , law , water , abroad , bought

/i:/ - clean , visa , piece , me , free

/ɜ:/ - prefer , early , Thursday , word , bird , girl

/ɑ:/ - car , card , heart , laugh , half


*Usually, words that have vowels that produced 'er' or 'ah' sound followed by the letter 'r' are transcribed as /ɜ:/ and /ɑ:/. Eg: girl = /gɜ:l/ 

Note that the phonemic letters don't necessarily belong to a certain letter, in fact they share the same letters and can be used to be transcribed the sound that letter made in the word.

For example:

• the letter 'u' can be transcribed as either /ʌ/ , /ʊ/ or /u:/.
• the letter 'a' can be transcribed as either /ʌ/ , /æ/ , /ɒ/ , /ɑ:/ or /ɔ/.
• the letter 'o' can be transcribed as either /ɒ/ , /u:/ or /ɜ:/.

Next in list is diphthongs. What are diphthongs?

Diphthongs are phonemic letters made up of 2 short vowel letters. These letters create more diverse and unique sounds that vowel letters can create like the sound of letters 'u', 'y' and 'o'.

There are 7 diphthongs that you will learn in this semester, which are:

/ɪe/ as in 'ear' , 'here' , 'dear' , 'mere'

/eɪ/ as in 'day' , 'may' , 'bay' , 'way'

/aʊ/ as in 'now' , 'how' , 'cow' , 'bow'

/ʊə/ as in 'tour' , 'sure' , 'cure'

/ɔɪ/ as in 'boy' , 'toy' , 'coy' , 'joy'

/əʊ/ as in 'home' , 'smoke' , 'snow' , 'hole' , 'cold'

/aɪ/ as in 'five' , 'knife' , 'fly' , 'kite' , 'bite' , 'tight'

Note that the way to pronounce each diphthong is by pronouncing the vowel letters accordingly. For example, to pronounce /əʊ/, you will need to pronounce the schwa letter /ə/ first  followed by the letter /ʊ/.

The letter /əʊ/ is usually used to transcribe the sound made by the letter 'o'. It can be used to transcribe words like oval. But not all words with the letter 'o' can be transcribed using this diphthong; it depends on how it is pronounced.

The difference between the sounds made /əʊ/ and /ɔ/ is significant. /əʊ/ creates an 'ewu' or 'owh' sound, while /ɔ/ produces an 'aw' sound. Entirely different!

Interesting?

Complicated?

Well, not to worry, folks. With more practice, you will be able to differentiate which phonemic letters belong to which Roman letters. The important key is to know what sound does each phonemic letter produces. It takes time for one to master this skill and use it well.

And that's all about vowels, their phonemic letters and sounds. I'll hope you guys learn something from it. I will continue this series next time with consonants,

Until then. :)