English Pronunciation for International Students, English Pronunciation for Spanish Speakers, English Pronunciation for Japanese Speakers, Speech Communication for International Students, and Speech Communication Made Simple: A Multicultural Perspective. | Lesson Pronouncing the Vowels of American English You have probably discovered that there is a big difference between the way words are spelled in English and the way they are pronounced. English spelling patterns are inconsistent and are not always a reliable guide to pronunciation. For example in the following words the letter a is used to represent five different sounds. hate father have any saw Pretty confusing right That s why we need a set of symbols in which each sound is represented by a different symbol. In this book you will see symbols used. These are the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA which is used all over the world. It consists of a set of symbols in which one symbol represents one sound. DON T PANIC It is not necessary to learn all the symbols at once. Each sound will be introduced and explained one at a time. You will learn the symbols easily as you progress through the book. A pronunciation key to the different vowels and diphthongs of American English with their IPA symbols is presented below. Refer to it as needed. To help you understand the exact pronunciation of the phonetic symbols and key words the Key to Pronouncing the Vowels of American English is included in the audio program. You will hear each phonetic symbol introduced and pronounced once. Each English key word will be said once. Key to Pronouncing the Vowels of American English INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET SYMBOL ENGLISH KEYWORDS SECTION 1 i me tea bee M it pin ei ate game they e egg head pet ae at fat happy a hot father SECTION 2 u you too rule u put cook A up but come ou boat no oh M all boss caught SECTION 3 a soda upon 3d urn first serve father after au out cow house ai my pie I oi oil boy noise 3 Definitions As you progress through English Pronunciation Made Simple you will frequently see the terms articulators vowels and diphthongs. We will now define these terms for you. Articulators The articulators are the different parts of the mouth area that we use when speaking .
