Tricky vowel sounds

Tricky vowel sounds! Yes, vowel sounds are tricky especially the part of English pronunciation while consonant sounds are fairly uniformed.

To understand the tricky vowels well, you need to first understand what a syllable is. A syllable is a unit of pronunciation.

E.g Oil (1 syllable)

Carrot (2 syllables)

Kangaroo (3 syllables)

We have three different types of tricky vowel sounds

Monothongs

Diphthongs

Triphthongs

Monothongs

These are single vowel sounds produced by air escaping through the mouth. They are usually differentiated from each other by their shapes, position of the jaw, lips, and tongues.

They are single vowel sound with a syllable E.g Oil /oi/ Card /a:/ Boots /oo/

For our monophthong, let’s take oil, for example, it has only one vowel sound with a syllable.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are two vowel sounds combined with a syllable, a diphthong is a vowel that requires a person to make or move his/her mouth into two positions to make a sound

E.gNear /ia/Play /ei/Let’s take, for example, near contains two vowel sound and it is combined with a syllable.

Triphthongs

Triphthongs are three vowel sounds combined with a syllable, it also requires a person to make or move his/her mouth into three positions to make a sound.

E.g playerHunterLet’s take player for example, it contains three vowel sound & it is combined with a syllable