Pronunciation of Long and Short Vowel Sounds
All vowels have at least two main sounds that they make depending on surrounding letters and sounds. These are usually referred to as the long and short sound of a vowel. This article shows some common spellings for long and short vowels as well as some minimal pairs where words change from long to short vowels.
The long a sound:
a ? race, able, make
ai ? wait, aim
ay ? slay, day, may
ei ? eight, weight
ey ? they, hey
ea ? break, great
The short a sound:
a ? cat, mad, dance
The long e sound:
e ? be, eve
ee ? see, sleep
ea ? meal, peace, read
ie/ei ? field, believe
The short e sound:
e ? let, tell, send
ea ? bread, weather, dead
The long i sound:
i ? pilot, file, idea
igh ? fight, sigh, light
ie ? lie, cried, tie
y ? by, why, apply
The short i sound:
i ? pin, tip, finish
e ? pretty
y ? myth, symbol, system
The long o sound:
o ? remote, hope, wrote
oa ? boat, soap, oak
ow ? snow, tomorrow, window
oe ? toe, soe
ough ? though, bough, thorough
The short o sound:
o ? pot, forgot, clock
The long u sound:
u ? use, unit, future
ue ? argue, hue, rescue
ew ? new, stew, few
oe ? shoe, canoe
The short u sound:
o ? opinion, come, color
u ? conduct, cut
ou ? couple, tough
Pronunciation of minimal pairs
An interesting thing about long and short vowels is that the pronunciation can be changed with the addition or subtraction of one letter. When this happens, words are called minimal pairs. Here are some examples of minimal pairs for long and short vowel sounds:
at ? ate
bat ? bate
cap ? cape
hat ? hate
tap ? tape
rat ? rate
beet ? bet
neat ? net
seat ? set
wheat ? wet
time ? tim
bite ? bit
light ? lit
site ? sit
might ? mit
wine ? win
cope ? cop
hope ? hop
cone ? con
note ? not
coat ? cot
cube ? cub
tube ? tub
cute ? cut
dude ? dud
Pronunciation of difficult phonems
1.L’article THE. Click HERE
2. Le son « s ». Click HERE
3.Le « TH ». Click HERE
4. Two, to et too. Click HERE
Additional exercices
