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Given a word containing vowels and consonants. The task is to find that in how many ways the word can be arranged so that the vowels always come together. Given that the length of the word <10.
Examples:
Input: str = “geek”
Output: 6
Ways such that both ‘e’ comes together are 6 i.e. geek, gkee, kgee, eekg, eegk, keegInput: str = “corporation”
Output: 50400
Approach: Since word contains vowels and consonants together. All vowels are needed to remain together then we will take all vowels as a single letter.
As, in the word ‘geeksforgeeks’, we can treat the vowels “eeoee” as one letter.
Thus, we have gksfrgks (eeoee).
This has 9 (8 + 1) letters of which g, k, s each occurs 2 times and the rest are different.
The number of ways arranging these letters = 9!/(2!)x(2!)x(2!) = 45360 ways
Now, 5 vowels in which ‘e’ occurs 4 times and ‘o’ occurs 1 time, can be arranged in 5! /4! = 5 ways.
Required number of ways = (45360 x 5) = 226800
Algorithm:
Step 1: Start
Step 2: Create a static function named “fact” of int return type and take the input value of int type as input which returns the factorial of a number.
Step 3: Now, create another static function of int return type named “waysOfConsonanats taking two parameters as input integer say “size1” and an integer array say “freq”.
a. inside it let’s calculate the factorial of a given value that is sez1.
b. Start a loop and iterate it 26 times and if the current value is a vowel, then continue the iteration else divide its c calculated factorial by the given frequency in the freq array
c. return the final value
Step 4: Now, create another static function of int return type named “waysOfVowels taking two parameters as input integer say size2” and an integer array say “freq”.
a. Calculate the factorial of “size2” inside of “waysOfVowels” and divide it by the sum of the factorials for each vowel’s frequency.
Step 5: Create a static method called “countWays” that returns the overall number of possible word arrangements and accepts the string parameter “str.”
a. Construct the 26-element “freq” integer array with all of its elements set to 0.
b. Based on the ASCII value of the characterless “a,” loop over the characters in the string and increase the value of the appropriate “freq” element.
c. The string’s vowels and consonants should be counted.
d. By calling “waysOfConsonants” and “waysOfVowels” with the right parameters and multiplying the results, you can get the overall number of possible ways.
Step 6: Return the final value
Step 7: End
Below is the implementation of the above approach:
C++
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
#define ll long long int
using
namespace
std;
ll fact(
int
n)
{
ll f = 1;
for
(
int
i = 2; i <= n; i++)
f = f * i;
return
f;
}
ll waysOfConsonants(
int
size1,
int
freq[])
{
ll ans = fact(size1);
for
(
int
i = 0; i < 26; i++) {
if
(i == 0 || i == 4 || i == 8 || i == 14 || i == 20)
continue
;
else
ans = ans / fact(freq[i]);
}
return
ans;
}
ll waysOfVowels(
int
size2,
int
freq[])
{
return
fact(size2) / (fact(freq[0]) * fact(freq[4]) * fact(freq[8])
* fact(freq[14]) * fact(freq[20]));
}
ll countWays(string str)
{
int
freq[26] = { 0 };
for
(
int
i = 0; i < str.length(); i++)
freq[str[i] -
'a'
]++;
int
vowel = 0, consonant = 0;
for
(
int
i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
if
(str[i] !=
'a'
&& str[i] !=
'e'
&& str[i] !=
'i'
&& str[i] !=
'o'
&& str[i] !=
'u'
)
consonant++;
else
vowel++;
}
return
waysOfConsonants(consonant+1, freq) *
waysOfVowels(vowel, freq);
}
int
main()
{
string str =
"geeksforgeeks"
;
cout << countWays(str) << endl;
return
0;
}
Java
import
java.util.*;
class
GFG{
static
int
fact(
int
n)
{
int
f =
1
;
for
(
int
i =
2
; i <= n; i++)
f = f * i;
return
f;
}
static
int
waysOfConsonants(
int
size1,
int
[]freq)
{
int
ans = fact(size1);
for
(
int
i =
0
; i <
26
; i++)
{
if
(i ==
0
|| i ==
4
|| i ==
8
||
i ==
14
|| i ==
20
)
continue
;
else
ans = ans / fact(freq[i]);
}
return
ans;
}
static
int
waysOfVowels(
int
size2,
int
[] freq)
{
return
fact(size2) / (fact(freq[
0
]) *
fact(freq[
4
]) * fact(freq[
8
]) *
fact(freq[
14
]) * fact(freq[
20
]));
}
static
int
countWays(String str)
{
int
[]freq =
new
int
[
200
];
for
(
int
i =
0
; i <
200
; i++)
freq[i] =
0
;
for
(
int
i =
0
; i < str.length(); i++)
freq[str.charAt(i) -
'a'
]++;
int
vowel =
0
, consonant =
0
;
for
(
int
i =
0
; i < str.length(); i++)
{
if
(str.charAt(i) !=
'a'
&& str.charAt(i) !=
'e'
&&
str.charAt(i) !=
'i'
&& str.charAt(i) !=
'o'
&&
str.charAt(i) !=
'u'
)
consonant++;
else
vowel++;
}
return
waysOfConsonants(consonant +
1
, freq) *
waysOfVowels(vowel, freq);
}
public
static
void
main(String []args)
{
String str =
"geeksforgeeks"
;
System.out.println(countWays(str));
}
}
Python3
def
fact(n):
f
=
1
for
i
in
range
(
2
, n
+
1
):
f
=
f
*
i
return
f
def
waysOfConsonants(size1, freq):
ans
=
fact(size1)
for
i
in
range
(
26
):
if
(i
=
=
0
or
i
=
=
4
or
i
=
=
8
or
i
=
=
14
or
i
=
=
20
):
continue
else
:
ans
=
ans
/
/
fact(freq[i])
return
ans
def
waysOfVowels(size2, freq):
return
(fact(size2)
/
/
(fact(freq[
0
])
*
fact(freq[
4
])
*
fact(freq[
8
])
*
fact(freq[
14
])
*
fact(freq[
20
])))
def
countWays(str1):
freq
=
[
0
]
*
26
for
i
in
range
(
len
(str1)):
freq[
ord
(str1[i])
-
ord
(
'a'
)]
+
=
1
vowel
=
0
consonant
=
0
for
i
in
range
(
len
(str1)):
if
(str1[i] !
=
'a'
and
str1[i] !
=
'e'
and
str1[i] !
=
'i'
and
str1[i] !
=
'o'
and
str1[i] !
=
'u'
):
consonant
+
=
1
else
:
vowel
+
=
1
return
(waysOfConsonants(consonant
+
1
, freq)
*
waysOfVowels(vowel, freq))
if
__name__
=
=
"__main__"
:
str1
=
"geeksforgeeks"
print
(countWays(str1))
C#
using
System.Collections.Generic;
using
System;
class
GFG{
static
int
fact(
int
n)
{
int
f = 1;
for
(
int
i = 2; i <= n; i++)
f = f * i;
return
f;
}
static
int
waysOfConsonants(
int
size1,
int
[]freq)
{
int
ans = fact(size1);
for
(
int
i = 0; i < 26; i++)
{
if
(i == 0 || i == 4 || i == 8 ||
i == 14 || i == 20)
continue
;
else
ans = ans / fact(freq[i]);
}
return
ans;
}
static
int
waysOfVowels(
int
size2,
int
[] freq)
{
return
fact(size2) / (fact(freq[0]) *
fact(freq[4]) * fact(freq[8]) *
fact(freq[14]) * fact(freq[20]));
}
static
int
countWays(
string
str)
{
int
[]freq =
new
int
[200];
for
(
int
i = 0; i < 200; i++)
freq[i] = 0;
for
(
int
i = 0; i < str.Length; i++)
freq[str[i] -
'a'
]++;
int
vowel = 0, consonant = 0;
for
(
int
i = 0; i < str.Length; i++)
{
if
(str[i] !=
'a'
&& str[i] !=
'e'
&&
str[i] !=
'i'
&& str[i] !=
'o'
&&
str[i] !=
'u'
)
consonant++;
else
vowel++;
}
return
waysOfConsonants(consonant + 1, freq) *
waysOfVowels(vowel, freq);
}
public
static
void
Main()
{
string
str =
"geeksforgeeks"
;
Console.WriteLine(countWays(str));
}
}
Javascript
<script>
function
fact(n)
{
let f = 1;
for
(let i = 2; i <= n; i++)
f = f * i;
return
f;
}
function
waysOfConsonants(size1,freq)
{
let ans = fact(size1);
for
(let i = 0; i < 26; i++)
{
if
(i == 0 || i == 4 || i == 8 ||
i == 14 || i == 20)
continue
;
else
ans = Math.floor(ans / fact(freq[i]));
}
return
ans;
}
function
waysOfVowels(size2,freq)
{
return
Math.floor(fact(size2) / (fact(freq[0]) *
fact(freq[4]) * fact(freq[8]) *
fact(freq[14]) * fact(freq[20])));
}
function
countWays(str)
{
let freq =
new
Array(200);
for
(let i = 0; i < 200; i++)
freq[i] = 0;
for
(let i = 0; i < str.length; i++)
freq[str[i].charCodeAt(0) -
'a'
.charCodeAt(0)]++;
let vowel = 0, consonant = 0;
for
(let i = 0; i < str.length; i++)
{
if
(str[i] !=
'a'
&& str[i] !=
'e'
&&
str[i] !=
'i'
&& str[i] !=
'o'
&&
str[i] !=
'u'
)
consonant++;
else
vowel++;
}
return
waysOfConsonants(consonant + 1, freq) *
waysOfVowels(vowel, freq);
}
let str =
"geeksforgeeks"
;
document.write(countWays(str));
</script>
Time complexity: O(n) where n is the length of the string
Auxiliary space: O(1)
Further Optimizations: We can pre-compute required factorial values to avoid re-computations.
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Vote for difficulty
Current difficulty :
Medium
Assonance. Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., meat, bean) or between their consonants (e.g., keep, cape). However, assonance between consonants is generally called consonance in American usage.
What are CCVC words?
CCVC and CVCC words. CCVC words and CVCC words are words follow specific letter sequences of consonant and vowel sounds. “Stop” is a CCVC word whereas “Post” is a CVCC word. CCVC words follow the letter sequence Consonant-Consonant-Vowel-Consonant.
Which word has all 5 vowels?
Eunoia, at six letters long, is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five main vowels. Seven letter words with this property include adoulie, douleia, eucosia, eulogia, eunomia, eutopia, miaoued, moineau, sequoia, and suoidea. (The scientific name iouea is a genus of Cretaceous fossil sponges.)
Is there a word that uses all vowels?
The word Iouea, a genus of sea sponges, contains all five regular vowels and no other letters. There are many words that feature all five regular vowels occurring only once in alphabetical order, the most common being abstemious and facetious.
What are the five long vowel sounds?
‘Long vowel’ is the term used to refer to vowel sounds whose pronunciation is the same as its letter name. The five vowels of the English spelling system (‘a’, ‘e,’ ‘i,’ ‘o,’ and ‘u’) each have a corresponding long vowel sound /eɪ/, /i/, /ɑɪ/, /oʊ/, /yu/.
Which word has a short e vowel sound?
When you spin the wheel, words containing a short «e» sound appear, including jet, leg, web, ten, net, sled, vest, egg, bed, men, nest, and hen.
How do you identify a vowel sound in words?
The Many Ways to Pronounce English Vowel Sounds All vowels have at least two pronunciations: a long sound and a short sound. A long vowel is the name of the vowel (for example, long “a” is “ay” like in the word “say”). A short vowel is a shorter sound (for example, short “a” sounds like “æ” from the word “cat”).
What is it called when two words look like they rhyme but don t?
They are called eye rhymes. Here is a reference from Brittanica: Eye rhyme, in poetry, an imperfect rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently (such as move and love, bough and though, come and home, and laughter and daughter).
The short answer is yes, and many languages can in various different ways, depending on what you mean by «this».
One example are abjads, where only the consonants are represented, and so ALL of the vowels are not orthographically represented, and you just have to know from context what’s there.
There is a similar problem for languages without official/standardly-accepted orthographies (of which there are TONS around the world), because everyone trying to represent it may create many independent ideoorthographies, each of which can have different representations for the same sound or the same symbol for different sounds.
In a slightly different case, there are examples like «生» in Japanese. Originally a Classical Chinese logogram, it has a TON of different pronunciations (and representing entirely different morphemes) depending on context, including:
/i/, /u/, /uma/, /umare/, /o/, /ha/, /ki/, /nama/, /namaa/, /na/, /mu/, /sei/, and /shou/ (list pulled from dictionary entry on jisho.org)
In conclusion, lots of languages, if they have orthography at all, have wacky ones, and I’m personally of the opinion that English is overdue for some serious spelling reform, not that it’d be a very simple, problem-free, or tractable problem, because you’re fundamentally torn between having a system where everyone spells things the same-ish way despite speaking dialects with wildly different pronunciations (like now) or having a system where everyone faithfully wrote English the way it sounds ( such as in IPA, for instance), but then things would be spelled differently anytime you moved to a different dialect region, so…. *shrug*
I wrote this simple Python script to analyze the official Scrabble dictionary for words that contain each of the vowels and the letter ‘y’, as you requested:
vowels = set('aeiouy')
with open('TWL06.txt') as file:
for line in file:
word = line.strip().lower()
letters = set(word)
if vowels <= letters:
print word
The result is below, sorted alphabetically (156 words).
I did the same thing, but omitted ‘y’. You can see those results (1905 words) here: http://www.michaelfogleman.com/static/files/vowels.txt
abstemiously
actinomycetous
adventitiously
aeronautically
ambidextrously
aneuploidy
antiregulatory
audiometry
authoritatively
autoeciously
autotetraploidy
autotypies
basidiomycetous
bimolecularly
buoyancies
cleistogamously
coeducationally
coequality
coevolutionary
communicatively
conceptuality
consequentially
consuetudinary
corynebacterium
coulometrically
countercyclical
counterrallying
cyanobacterium
cytomegalovirus
daguerreotypies
daguerreotyping
daguerreotypist
delusionary
denunciatory
devolutionary
documentarily
educationally
efficaciously
elocutionary
encouragingly
equationally
equilibratory
equivocality
equivocally
eudiometrically
eugeosynclinal
eukaryotic
eulogistically
euphonically
euphorically
evolutionarily
evolutionary
exclusionary
facetiously
gelatinously
genitourinary
gesticulatory
grandiloquently
gregariously
hellaciously
heterosexuality
homosexuality
hyaluronidase
hyaluronidases
hypercautious
hyperfastidious
hyperfunctional
ichthyofaunae
immunoassayable
immunotherapy
importunately
incommensurably
inefficaciously
instantaneously
insubordinately
insurrectionary
intravenously
magniloquently
mendaciously
miscellaneously
monumentality
mouthwateringly
mycobacterium
nefariously
neurofibrillary
neurogenically
neurologically
neuropathically
neuropsychiatry
neuroradiology
neurotically
oleaginously
ostentatiously
outwearying
overmaturity
oxyuriases
paramyxoviruses
perspicaciously
pertinaciously
phenylketonuria
phenylthiourea
phenylthioureas
pneumatolytic
polybutadiene
polybutadienes
praseodymium
praseodymiums
precariously
precautionary
psychosexuality
questionably
questionary
radiolucency
renunciatory
revolutionarily
revolutionary
sacrilegiously
semidocumentary
sequaciously
simultaneously
subordinately
subventionary
subversionary
successionally
sulfinpyrazone
sulfinpyrazones
superloyalist
superloyalists
supermajority
supernormality
supersonically
tautonymies
temerariously
tenaciously
turbomachinery
uncomplimentary
uncongeniality
uncopyrightable
unemotionally
unemployability
unequivocably
unequivocally
unexceptionably
unextraordinary
uninformatively
unintentionally
unquestionably
unreasoningly
unrecognizably
unrevolutionary
ventriloquially
veraciously
vexatiously
vituperatory
volumetrically
voyeuristically
Vowel reading rules in English
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Today let’s talk about rules for reading vowels in Englishyou need to know in order to successfully master both the oral and written aspects.
First, let’s review the English alphabet and do it using a nursery rhyme. I think rap style fans will especially like it! It is great if you add some of the typical movements that are typical of this style of music during your performance.
Alphabet song
AA, B, C, D, E
stand up and look at me.
F, G, H, I, J
I play football every day.
K, L, M, N, O
I Cake of All.
P, Q, R, S, T
Hey people, listen to me.
U, V, W, X, Y, Z
The alphabet is in my head!
recording: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or higher) is required to play this audio recording. Download the latest version here. In addition, JavaScript must be enabled in your browser.
As you may have noticed, in the English alphabet 26 letters: 6 vowels и 20 consonants.
They form 44 sound: 20 vowels and 24 consonants.
Vowel sounds are divided into:
- short [i], [e], [ɔ], [u], [ʌ], [æ], [ǝ]
- long [i:], [ɜ:], [ɔ:], [u:], [a:]
- diphthongs [ei], [ai], [ɔi], [iǝ], [ǝu], [au], [ɛǝ], [aiǝ], [auǝ]
The difficulty is that vowels are read differently, depending on which syllable the vowel occurs in.
It is generally accepted that in English there is 4 types of syllables.
Let’s analyze each of them, noting the characteristic features.
French Alphabet
I type of syllable (vowel + consonant + vowel):
open, vowel reads like this, how is shecalled in the alphabet… We consider only the striking position.
In words like bake, smile, Rope, tube— final «e» not pronounced, it is called dumb (mute buttonletter).
Monosyllabic words like we, go, hi, my are also of the first type.
Samples
a[ei] — name, face, cake, make, bake, take, mistake, lake, snake, lazy, crazy, nature, cage, potato
e [i:] — Egypt, Greece, tree, free, three, street, green, sleep, meter, fever, emu, lemur, he, she, we
i [ai] — five, nine,, ride a bike, drive, smile, time, nice, kite, diving, pine, spider, tiger, white
o [ǝu] — nose, rose, home, hope, rope, stone, sofa, notebook, October, composer, phone, model
u [ju:] — Pupil, Student, Tulip, Computer, Cucumber, Excuse, Music, Cuba, Future, Huge, Tube, Blue
y [ai] — why, sky, cry, spy, dry, fly, butterfly, my, shy, type, style, to rely on, July, xylophone by
IIsyllable type (vowel + consonant + consonant):
closed, vowel readable briefly. We consider only the striking position. The lexical meaning of the word depends on the length and brevity of the pronunciation of the sound in English. For example, take words like sheep (I type of syllable [ʃi: p]) and ship (II type of syllable [ʃip]).
Correct
There is a sheep On the meadow.
There is a ship in the sea
Incorrect
There is a ship On the meadow.
There is a sheep in the sea
(The poor lamb got it!)
Samples
a [æ] — black, happy, cabbage, carrot, rabbit, daddy, granny, gallery, Africa, hand, cap, cat, map
e [e] — red, December, letter, kettle, pen, pencil, desk, address, left, cherry, chess, egg, hen, ten
i [i] — Pink, Six, Fifty, Little, Big, Pig, Spring, Winter, King, Finger, Kitchen, Milk, Fish, Children
o [ɔ] — golden, fox, dolphin, dog, hospital, doctor, bottle, box, clock, hobby, coffee, concert
u[ʌ] — summer, butter, hundred, number, brush, duck, club, jump, lunch, plum, mushroom, cup
y [i] — gym, gymnastics, lynx, myth, mystery, symbol, symphony, symptom, syllable, system
IIIsyllable type (vowel + r + consonant):
vowel is read long… Long sounds are indicated by two dots «:» to the right of the sound sign. We consider only the striking position.
Letter «r« in this type of syllable is not pronounced.
Monosyllabic words like jar, bar, here , sir, fur are also of the third type.
Samples
ar [a:] — farmer, garden, party, car, scar, bar, barber, marmalade, shark, garlic, parsley, starling
er [ɜ:] — Advertisement, Person, Perfect, University, To Prefer, Dessert, Germany, Term, Interpreter
ir [ɜ:] — bird, girl, the first, the third, thirteen, thirty, birthday, shirt, T-shirt, circus, skirt, sir, fir
or [ɔ:] — pork, orchard, orchestra, order, orchid, (un) fortunately, divorce, enormous, immortal
ur [ɜ:] — curl (y), curds, curtain, to disturb, purple, Thursday, turnip, windsurfing, surface, hurt
yr [ɜ:] — martyr (martyr), myrrh (myrrh), Kyrgyz, Kyrgyzstan
IVsyllable type (vowel + r + vowel):
reading like diphthongs. Diphthongs are combinations of two vowel sounds, the first of which is pronounced more energetically than the second. We consider only the striking position. In some words, the letter «r» is not pronounced, while in others it makes the sound [r].
Samples
are [ɛǝ] — parents, care, rarely, various, to compare, scarecrow, canary, malaria, square, share
ere [iǝ] — Here, Imperial, Serious, Mysterious, Nigeria, Serial, Sincere, Zero, Hero, Cereal, Interfere
ire [aiǝ] — tired, retired, to admire, desire, Ireland, iron, environment, requirement, biro, virus
or [ɔ:] — Ore, Store, Snore, Score, Bore, BORING, Shore, To IGNORE, To Explore, Story, Storey, Glory
ure [juǝ] — pure, cure, curable, incurable, during, Europe, euro, curious, mural (fresco), security
yre [aiǝ] — lyre (lyre), tire (US — tire tire), tyrant (tyrant), papyrus (papyrus)
Important! Research shows that total 30% words English can be read using the rules above; rest 70% words — historically developed vocabulary. Therefore, I strongly recommend actively using dictionaries in the process of learning English.
I think the article is about rules for reading vowels in English will be useful for those who plan to take the exam in English. In the oral part of the exam there is a task in which you need to read the proposed passage of text (1.5 minutes), observing all the rules for reading vowels and consonants.
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Source: http://smashtrash.ru/pravila-chteniya/pravila-chteniya-glasnykh-v-angliyskom-ya.html
Rules for reading vowels in English in tables with examples
It is believed that reading in English is a rather difficult skill for the simple reason that there is no rigid system of reading rules in English and letters, in particular vowels, can be read differently depending on their position in a word or in a syllable. In this post, I will cover the rules for reading vowels in English with examples.
English vowels and reading features
There are 6 vowels in the English alphabet. But the sounds they transmit are many times more — there are 20 of them in total (including long vowels).
Vowels:
- A — hey
- E — and
- I — ay
- O — oh
- U — u
- Y — wye
The English language is characterized by the presence of diphthongs.
Diphthongs — these are sounds, when pronounced, one vowel sound passes into another, that is, in fact, they are pronounced as two sounds.
For example, the word in the word home, the vowel o is read as «oh», that is, in fact, it forms two sounds [əʊ]. The same with the word house, where the combination of letters «ou» reads «ay» and gives a double sound [aʊ].
Do not confuse diphthongs with two letter combinations. For example, in the word head there are two vowels in a row, but the combination of letters «ea» is read as «e», that is, we get a single sound [e].
Thus, vowels in English can be read as in the alphabet, and convey a number of other sounds.
Rules for reading English vowels and vowel combinations
For convenience, I will give tables for each letter with examples, descriptions and reading in Russian. In Russian, of course, it is impossible to convey the exact reading of this or that sound, but I will write approximately.
For correct reading, it is important to know such concepts as closed and open syllables.
Closed syllable in English, this is the syllable that ends in a consonant a letter… For example maponn, fatherg, bead and so on.
Open syllable — a syllable that ends in a vowel a letter… For example, take, py, bike and so on.
Please note that the syllable must end with a vowel or consonant, not a sound. That is, if in English at the end of a word there is e mute, then the syllable is considered open.
Letter A
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [æ] — э | Map, cap, pack, black, flag |
In an open syllable — [ei] — heyreading as in the alphabet | Name, game, flame, table, lake, pay |
In a closed syllable followed by r — sound [a:] like russian а, long | Car, bar, jar, start, farmer |
In an open syllable followed by r — diphthong [eǝ] — ea | Care, rare, prepare |
Letter E
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [e] — e | Red, vet, set, tell |
In an open syllable — [i:] — and long | Meter, complete |
At the end of words e is not readable in English, but affects the reading of the word | Table, plate, take For example, the words cap and cape — in the first case we read «cap», since the syllable is closed, in the second case, «cap», since the syllable is open |
In short, monosyllabic words, these are mainly service parts of speech, e at the end of a word is read if it is the only vowel in the word and gives [i:] i.e и long | He, she, we, me, be |
In an open syllable followed by r — diphthong [iǝ] — ia | Here, sphere, severe |
Letter I
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [i] — and | Sick, tip, limp, kit, trick |
In an open syllable — [ai] — aylike in the alphabet | Life, mine, line, pipe, time, kite |
In a closed syllable followed by the letter r — [ə:] — similar to Russian ё, long sound | Girl, bird, third, dirty, sir, first |
In an open syllable followed by a letter r — [aiǝ] — aye | Fire, tires |
Letter O
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [ɔ] — oh | Fog, nod, lock, log, got |
In an open syllable — [əu] — oh | Rope, nose, toe, vote |
In a closed and open syllable followed by a letter r — [ɔ:]—о long | Nor, born, corn, torn, more, core |
In an unstressed syllable — [ə] — uh, the sound is drop-out, therefore it sounds indistinct and short, fluently, for example, lemon is not a lemon or a lamen, but a lamn with a slightly audible «e» between «m» and «n» | lemon, melon |
In some cases, the letter «O» can be read like «A» [ʌ], for example, «love». And also like «U» [u], for example, in the word «move». These reading options do not lend themselves to specific rules and logic, so such words need to be memorized.
Letter U
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [ʌ] — a | Cut — «kat», rubber, but, mug, but put reads like «put» |
In a closed syllable followed by a letter r — [ə:] — similar to Russian ё, long sound | turn, burnt |
In an open syllable after two consonants — [u:] — у long, as well as in an open syllable after j and r | Blue, trueJuly, rule |
In an open syllable followed by a letter r —[juə] — yue | Cure, secure, mature |
In an open syllable after one consonant (except for j and r) — [ju:] — yu | Tube, mute, cute |
Letter Y
Sound in transcription and its reading in Russian | Examples |
In a closed syllable — [i] — and | System, sympathy, mystery |
In an open stressed syllable — [ai] — ay | Shy, cry, try, my, bye |
In an open syllable followed by a letter r —[aiə] — aye | Tire, byre |
In an unstressed syllable — [i] — and | Rainy, snowy, crispy |
At the beginning of a word before a vowel — [j] — th | Year, yellow, yet, yes |
These are the basic rules for reading vowels in English. But do not forget that there are many exceptions to each of these rules.
In subsequent publications, I will cover the rules for reading consonants and letter combinations of vowels and consonants.
Source: https://my-opinion.ru/inostrannye-yazyki/anglijskij/pravila-chteniya-glasnyh-v-tablitsah/
Lesson 8. Pronunciation of consonants [f] and [v]. Closed syllable in English
Hello! In this lesson, we again return to consonant sounds and now we learn to pronounce sounds [f] и [v] and accordingly read the English letters Ff [ef] and Vv [vi]. And let’s also remember what a closed syllable is in English, since this is one of the basic concepts in teaching reading.
So, from lesson number 8 you will learn:
- how to pronounce english consonants [f] и [v] correctly;
- what is a closed syllable in English;
- and repeat how the vowel is read y at the end of the word.
If you have just joined us, then here is a link to the section «Author’s English lessons for teaching reading and pronunciation at the same time»
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Rules for reading letters f and v in English
So, let’s begin! English consonants f и v transmit sounds [f] и [v]. The sounds [f] and [v] are labiodental, that is, to pronounce them, you need bite the lower lip with the upper teeth.
At first glance, the English sounds [f] and [v] are similar to the Russian “f” and “v”. But there is also a significant difference: the English sounds [f] and [v] are long.
To pronounce the English sound [v] correctly, it is necessary to pronounce it for a long time, as, for example, the doubled «v» in the words «up», «introduction».
To pronounce the English sound [f] correctly, bite the lower lip and exhale vigorously. The English sound [f] is very long and strong. In the transcription [f] should be designated [fff].
Listen to how the sounds [f] and [v] are pronounced — HERE
As for the concept of «voiced» — «deaf», the British do not understand at all what it is. They have the concept of «weak» (we call this sound «voiced» in Russian) and the concept of «strong» (we call this sound «dull»).
Now we need to practice a little. Let’s get down to the exercises. After that we will repeat again, how words are divided into syllables, which syllable is in the word MAIN and what is a closed syllable in English.
Now we start working out English sounds [fff] and [vvv]
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Phonetic exercises with audio recording (closed content no.19)
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Description: Access to a course of lessons on teaching reading in English and pronunciation at the same time. 50% discount until 01.01.2020/XNUMX/XNUMX. Author T.V. Nabeeva
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What is a closed syllable in English?
If you learn English from scratch on our website, then from lesson number 6 you learned what the third type of syllable is in English. Now we’ll talk about how words are divided into syllables. (1)which syllable in the word is the most important (2) и what is a closed syllable in English(3) (it was already mentioned in lesson 1)
(1) So, words are divided into syllables by the number of vowels… That is, how many vowels there are in a word, there are so many syllables in it. Take a word for example, happy Doubled consonant p divides a word into two syllables.
`hap — py
- hap — this syllable ends with a consonant sound, and is called closed;
- py — this syllable, ends in a vowel sound, and is called open.
(2) The main thing is the STRICT syllable. It is in it that the vowel sound is read according to the rules that you have already learned. By the way, I remind you that the unstressed letter y at the end of a word reads like [i], for example, party [`pa: ti]
(3) A closed syllable is a syllable that ends in a consonant.
Now let’s remember the passed rules for reading vowels in a closed syllable in English:
a is readAs [æ]. Examples. hat, happy
e readAs [e]. Examples. men, mental
i, y are readAs [i]. Examples. kit, kitty
u readAs [ʌ]. Examples. bud, buddy
0 is often read as [ʌ]. Examples. love, glove, lovely.
NOTE. How to read the vowel Oo in a closed syllable, you will learn further — Lesson number 9. Reading the English letter Oo in a closed syllable.
NOTE. Sonorous consonants m, n, l — also form a syllable, because they can be pulled. Try saying [mmmm], [nnnn], [llll]. Therefore, in the word apple there are two syllables: ap-ple (the second syllable is a sonor consonant — l).
Also, remember, in English vowel e at the end of a word NEVER readable.
Once there is closed syllable, then, accordingly, there is open syllable, but you will learn about it in the following lessons. For now, let’s figure out how unstressed vowels are read in English.
* * *
The rule of reading an unstressed vowel in English
So, as a rule, there is usually one stressed syllable in a word, in which the vowel is read according to the rules, then a logical question arises: how is an unstressed vowel read?
In English there is a universal sound similar to the Russian «e» — [ə]… This is the most common sound, as it is read in all unstressed syllables. This sound is called «Seam». Sometimes it is replaced by the sound [i], as, for example, in the words above.
Exercise 5. Read two-syllable words with learned sounds:
apple, badly, balcony, happy, garden, party, hardly, carpet, dummy, funny, muddy, puppy, lovely, kitty, ditty, mitten, kitten, affect, Betty, heaven [`hevən]
Exercise 6. Finally, memorize a few English phrases:
- Have fun! — Have fun!
- Have tea. — Have some tea.
- Keep fit. — Keep in shape.
- Be happy! — Be happy!
Let’s sum up the results of the eighth lesson from the cycle «Teaching reading in English and pronunciation at the same time», from which you learned and hopefully remembered that:
- words are divided into syllables by the number of vowels;
- closed is a syllable that ends in a consonant;
- in a closed stressed syllable, the vowel is read according to the rules that must be memorized;
- in unstressed syllables, the vowel reads like [ə] or [i]. So, for example, the unstressed letter y at the end of a word it reads like [i].
* * *
And of course you now know how to pronounce sounds [f] и [v] in english is correct.
Lesson 9. Pronunciation of the English vowel [ɒ]. Reading the English letter O in a closed syllable. You will learn how to pronounce the very English sound [ɒ] and how to read the vowel Oo in a closed syllable.
Source: http://englishstory.ru/urok-8-proiznoshenie-soglasnyih-zvukov-f-i-v-ponyatie-o-zakryitom-sloge.html
What are the syllables in English
The English alphabet has six vowels, but individually and in combination with each other, they form more than two dozen sounds, including diphthongs. The reading of a vowel depends on the letters adjacent to it and on the type of syllable in which it is located.
Open syllable
A syllable is considered open if it ends in a vowel (to-tal, ri-val, bi-ble, mo-tor). The vowel in this case gives a long sound — that is, it is read as in the alphabet. Words with a dumb «e» also belong to this type. For example:
- take [teɪk]
- Pete[pi:t]
- kite [kaɪt]
- nose [nəʊz]
- cute [kju: t]
Some monosyllabic words also represent open syllables. For example, me, she, he and no, so, go.
Closed syllable
The closed syllable is the most common spelling unit of the English language; it makes up about 50% of the syllables in the text. A closed syllable ends in one or more consonants, and the vowel is read briefly in this case.
In English, there are many closed-type monosyllabic words (cat, pin, hen). If a suffix starting with a vowel is added to them, the consonant in front of it is doubled. This is done in order to avoid changing the sound. For example:
- hat [hæt] — hatter
- pin [pɪn] — pinned
- hot [hɒt] — hottest
- red [red] — reddish
- cut [kʌt] — cutting
The syllable «vowel + r»
The third type of syllable is one in which the vowel is followed by the letter «r». The vowel makes a long sound, and the «r» itself is unreadable (in British English).
- car [kɑː]
- herb [hɜːb]
- girl [ɡɜːl]
- form [fɔːm]
- turn [tɜːn]
The doubled «r» does not affect the sound of the vowel. In this case, the syllable is read as closed. Compare:
- smirk [sməːk] — mirror [ˈmɪrə]
- curl [kəːl] — current [ˈkʌr (ə) nt]
- port [pɔːt] — torrent [ˈtɒr (ə) nt]
The syllable «vowel + re»
In a syllable of this type, the letter «r» is also not read, and the vowel forms a diphthong.
- dare [deə]
- mere [mɪə]
- hire [ˈhaɪə]
- core [kɔː]
- pure [pjʊə]
The syllable «consonant + le»
Sometimes this syllable stands out separately — it occurs only at the end of a word. If -le is preceded by one consonant, the syllable is read as open. If there are two consonants in front of -le, it is read as closed. Compare:
- table [ˈteɪbl] — dabble [dæbl], title [ˈtaɪtl] — little [ˈlɪtl]
- bugle [bju: gl] — struggle [ˈstrʌɡl], rifle [ˈraɪfl] — sniffle [ˈsnɪfl]
Not every consonant is found in combination with -Le… Here are the ones that are typical for the English language:
- -ble (bubble) -fle (rifle) -stle (whistle) -cle (cycle)
- -gle (bugle) -tle (brittle) -ckle (pickle) -kle (tinkle)
- -zle (dazzle) -dle (bridle) -ple (staple)
Vowel combinations (digraphs)
A digraph is a combination of two letters that are pronounced as one sound. In the case of vowels, it can be a long, short sound or a diphthong. Most often, digraphs are found in old Anglo-Saxon words, the pronunciation of which has undergone changes over hundreds of years: thief, boil, hay, boat, straw. They are read according to special rules, but there are many exceptions to them, so these words need to be learned gradually and systematically.
Basic vowel digraphs
Spelling | Pronunciation | Examples |
ai / ay | [eɪ] | bait, hay |
au / aw | [ɔː] | taunt, draw |
ea | [i:] | meat, deal |
[e] | bread, steady | |
ee | [i:] | feed, reel |
ei | [eɪ] | feint, vein |
[i:] (after c) | ceiling, receive | |
eu / ew | [ju:] | Feud, Strewn |
ie | [i:] | thief, priest |
oa | [əʊ] | coat, goal |
oi / oy | [ɔɪ] | coin, toy |
oo | [u:] | root, food |
[ʊ] (before k) | book, look | |
ou | [aʊ] | loud, noun |
[u:] | soup, ghoul | |
ow | [aʊ] | cow, howl |
[oʊ] | know, low |
Source: https://skyeng.ru/articles/kakie-byvayut-slogi-v-anglijskom-yazyke
Vowels in English: Reading and Sounds — English in 5 Steps
Before teaching you to read vowels in English, I should note that due to its history, English has a sufficient number of exception words from almost every reading rule.
It just doesn’t make sense to list them all, but I offer you, dear readers, the following interactive: remembered the word exception for a particular item — wrote it down in the comments with translation (the most advanced can write with transcription).
Let’s help each other know the language better!
And, of course, I cannot help but warn you: in this rule there will be many transcription icons. Realizing that you are just learning, I duplicate it in Russian letters, but I do not recommend doing this all the time, and in one of the following articles I will explain why. If transcription is still too much for you, here you can make sure it’s not that hard to remember.
Vowels in English: reading open and closed syllables
Syllables are open and closed. An open syllable ends in a vowel. Closed — to a consonant. In this case, consonants work as locks (close a syllable), and vowels as keys (open a syllable). Thus, if there is a vowel after the last consonant in a syllable, the syllable is still considered open.
cat — closed syllable — at the end the consonant letter Tt;
name is an open syllable, because after the consonant «Mm» (lock) there is a vowel «Ee» (key), which, as it were, opens the syllable to us.
Reading vowels
In an open syllable, the stressed vowel is read as in the alphabet, and in a closed syllable it is read short. Each vowel has its own sound for the stressed closed syllable.
If there are two vowels in a stressed syllable, read the first as in an open syllable.
hear — [hiə] — [hia] to hear: the letter Ee is read as in an open syllable, the sound ə gives the buva Rr.
Lean — [li: n] — [liin] — lean against:: the letter Ee is read as in an open syllable
boat — [bout] — [boat] boat: the letter Oo is read as in the alphabet.
The Rr letter and vowels in English
The letter K affects the reading of vowels. So, in a closed syllable before Rr:
EUI vowels are read as [ɜ:] — a sound similar to [ё], only without the [th] overtones at the beginning.
girl — [gɜ: l] — [gol] — girl; burn [bɜ: n] — [ben] -burn; nerd [nɜ: d] — [nёd] -sound.
The vowels O and A stretch: read as [Ͻ:] and [a:]
car — [kа:] — [kаa] car; lord — [lϽ:d] — [lood] lord
All you need is love!
The vowel Aa before the letter Ll at the beginning of a word is often read as [Ͻ:]
always [Ͻ: lweiz] — [olways] -always, also [Ͻ: lsə] — [olso] — also, ball [bϽ: l] — [bol] — ball
Author of the material Kondratenko Anna
Source: https://eng5steps.ru/chtenie-na-angliyskom-glasniye/
Vowels and Sounds — Lesson 2 — English from scratch
Continuing the theme of the previous lesson about the alphabet about letters and sounds, it is worth deepening your knowledge of reading the vowels of the English alphabet. After all, they make up almost half of the total number of all sounds.
General concept of vowel sounds
As mentioned earlier, there are 20 vowel sounds, while there are only 6 vowel letters themselves. This is not easy to put into the understanding of a Russian-speaking person, because there is no such thing in Russian. Wider variety of vowels in the English alphabet — this is his distinguishing feature.
Namely, diphthongs, which are completely alien to Slavic languages, constitute difficulties in learning. But transcription comes to the aid of students — this is a recording of the reading of a word using phonetic symbols denoting a certain sound. That is, every English word in the dictionary is written with a transcription that will tell you exactly how it is read.
It remains only to learn to distinguish and read all sounds.
Reading vowels in open and closed syllables
The reading of vowels depends on their place in the word:
- in the first type of syllable (vowel at the end), the letter is read according to its name in the alphabet,
- in the second (consonant at the end) — as a short sound.
Consider reading all vowels of English letters with transcription:
LetterOpen syllableClosed syllable
Aa [ei] | [ei]
|
[ᴂ]
|
ee[i:] | [i:]
|
[e] |
Source: https://www.lovelylanguage.ru/start/english-from-scratch/2-glasnyye
Reading vowels in English. Reduction. Reduction types
The stress in English falls on the root syllable. English stressed vowels are read depending on what type of syllable they are used in.
In English, there are four types of vowel reading in stressed syllables.
1 type of vowel reading
In this type of reading, the vowels are in open position, that is, the stressed syllable ends with this vowel. Vowels in this case are read in the same way as in the alphabet:
a [ei], o [əu], u [ju:] or [u:] if u is preceded by r or consonant combination + r.
e [i:], i [ai], y [ai]
Cases are possible:
1) The syllable ends with a stressed vowel. it completely open syllable… Examples: go [gəu], me [min ː].
2) After the stressed vowel, there is a consonant (not r), and then comes the «mute» e. It conditionally open syllable… Examples: home[həum], type [taɪp].
3) A stressed vowel is followed by a vowel including «mute» e… Examples: lie[lai], due [djuː].
2 type of vowel reading
In type 2 reading, the vowels are in closed position, that is, the syllable ends in a consonant. In this case, the vowels are read briefly, abruptly:
a [æ], o [ɔ], u [ʌ], e [e], i [i], y [i]
Cases are possible:
1) The vowel is between two consonants. it completely closed syllable… Example: man[mæn],hot[hɔt].
2) Cases completely closed syllablewhen there are two or more consonants after a vowel. Examples: lamp[læmp], rhy
Source: http://enjoy-eng.ru/chtenie-glasnykh-bukv-v-angliiskom-iazyke-reduktciia-tipy-reduktcii
Rules for reading English for beginners, table. Intonation and stress in English
At the initial stage of learning English, you inevitably have to deal with the differences between your native language and a foreign one. Reading in English for beginners, children and adults is usually one of the first steps in learning.
And the first such differences between Russian and English are revealed as soon as you start learning to read in English. You are faced with the transcription and reading rules of the English language.
These two concepts are related, since with the help of transcription we can record and read the sounds that vowels and consonants convey in various combinations. But the reading rules explain exactly how the letters are pronounced in different environments.
There are a lot of reading rules in English, and they relate to both vowels and consonants. In addition, a huge number of words are not read according to the rules, that is, they are exceptions. Therefore, it begins to seem that it is extremely difficult to learn all this.
In fact, the rules of reading need to be learned, but there is no need to memorize them. After doing a few exercises on reading rules, you will already know how exactly the same type of words are read.
In the learning process, when you read and listen to a variety of study materials, the spelling, pronunciation and meaning of new words will be memorized as a whole.
Features of English pronunciation
At first, reading in English for beginners presents some difficulties due to the peculiarities of pronunciation — words are very often pronounced differently than they are spelled. Linguists even have a saying — «We write — Manchester, we pronounce — Liverpool.»
This situation is due to the fact that historically in the English language there existed, and there are still many dialects in which the same letters and letter combinations were read in different ways, which eventually became entrenched in official English. An example is the combination of letters ough.
The words though, through, thought differ by only one letter, and the combination of letters ough is read differently in all words.
The role of transcription in teaching English reading
So, as we have already said, in addition to the numerous rules for reading in English, difficulties arise when mastering the transcription of the English language. Transcription is the recording of speech sounds using special characters.
You should not avoid it, as it is the best assistant in learning a language, which, firstly, will save you time when memorizing new words, and secondly, it will help to avoid mistakes in pronunciation. After all, when you write out or memorize new words, you definitely need to know how they are read correctly.
There are two options for how to do this. The first is to listen to it in some online resource, and the second is to watch the transcription.
Now in some tutorials, as well as on training sites, you can find «English transcription in Russian». It is believed that writing an English word in Russian letters is much easier than learning some incomprehensible phonetic symbols. In fact, this is a delusion.
English phonetics differs from Russian so much that Russian letters can only approximately convey the pronunciation of English words, and mostly the simplest ones, the reading of which even without this kind of «transcription» is not difficult.
Some English sounds in Russian simply do not exist, and the correct pronunciation of English and Russian sounds similar at first glance may have certain differences.
Therefore, we recommend that you take the time to study transcription icons and read sounds. This is one of the basic knowledge in mastering the rules of reading English for beginners. Knowledge of transcription will serve you faithfully at all stages of your learning.
We analyze the rules for reading English
There are different classifications of the rules for reading consonants and vowels in English. For vowels, as a rule, there are 4 types of syllables. These are the 4 types of environment a vowel can find itself in and which affects its pronunciation.
Some textbooks consider only the first two types of syllables — open and closed, but take into account whether the letter r is involved in these types of syllables — since it affects the reading of vowels. Consonants in different combinations can also be read differently.
I must say that the number of exceptions and variants of reading the same letter combinations in different words give reason to consider the reading rules rather general recommendations that should be studied before starting to read.
To familiarize yourself with the rules of reading in English, we suggest that you take as a basis the tables with options for reading letters, which are given in his textbook for children “English. 1-4 grades in diagrams and tables «N.Vakulenko.
These English reading rules for children cover almost every possible reading of vowels and consonants in English.
But before we go directly to the tables, we will deal with two more concepts that you will surely come across when you get acquainted with the reading rules. it open и closed syllable.
The syllable is called openWhen
- ends in a vowel and is the last in a word
- the vowel is followed by a consonant and then a vowel again
- the vowel is followed by another vowel
Examples of words with an open type of syllable (you can listen with sound):
age, blue, bye, fly, go
The syllable is called closedWhen
- ends in a consonant and is the last in a word
- the vowel is followed by several consonants
Examples of words with a closed type of syllable:
bed, big, box, hungry, stand
So, let’s formulate the rules for reading English for beginners: tables for reading vowels and consonants.
Vowel reading tables
A | |
A [ei] — in an open syllable | lake, make |
A [æ] — in a closed syllable | rat, map |
A [a:] — in a closed syllable on r | car, bar |
A [εə] — at the end of a word vowel + re | care, fare |
A [ɔ:] — combinations all, au | all, tall |
O | |
O [əu] — in an open syllable | no, home |
O [ɒ] — in a closed stressed syllable | lot, boss |
O [ɜ:] — in some words with «wor» | word, work |
O [ɔ:] — in a closed syllable with r | horse, door |
O [u:] — in combination «oo» | too, food |
O [u] — in combination «oo» | good look |
O [aʊ] — in combination «ow» in the stressed syllable | Now, CLOWN |
O [ɔɪ] — in combination «oy» | boy, joy |
U | |
U [yu:], [yu] — in an open syllable | blue, duty |
U [ʌ] — in a closed syllable | butter, cup |
U [u] — in a closed syllable | put, bull |
U [ɜ:] — in combination «ur» | Purse, hurt |
E | |
E [i:] — in an open syllable, a combination of «ee», «ea» | he, meet, leaf |
E [e] — in a closed syllable, combination «ead» | head, bread |
E [ɜ:] — in combinations «er», «ear» | her, pearl |
E [ɪə] — in ear combinations | near, dear |
I | |
i [aɪ] — in an open syllable | nice, fine |
i [aɪ] — in combination «igh» | high, night |
i [ɪ] — in a closed syllable | big, in |
i [ɜ:] — in combination «ir» | bird girl |
i [aɪə] — in combination «ire» | hire, tired |
Y | |
Y [aɪ] — at the end of a word under stress | my cry |
Y [ɪ] — at the end of a word without stress | happy family |
Y [j] — at the beginning of a word | yes, yellow |
Consonant reading tables
С | |
C [s] — before i, e, y | Place, Cinema |
C [tʃ] — in combinations ch, tch | children, catch |
C [k] — in other cases | cat, picnic |
Source: https://lim-english.com/posts/pravila-chteniya-angliiskogo-yazika-dlya-nachinaushih/
Open and closed syllables in English — vowel reading tables
Consider an open and closed syllable in English. As you already understood, the reading of vowels in English is closely related to this concept.
The main trick here is that vowels can be pronounced differently depending on which syllable they are in. In English, there are two syllables in total: open and closed.
Open syllable in English
What is open syllable? This is the syllable that ends in a vowel (more often this е, but it itself is not pronounced). In such a syllable, vowels are read only as they are named in the alphabet (see table 1).
Table # 1. Open syllable in English Vowel (listen) Transcription
A a | [eɪ] | Hey |
E e | [iː] | long and |
I and | [aɪ] | ouch |
The o | [əʊ] | OU |
U u | [ju:] | long y |
Y y y | [wai] | wye |
examples:
me [MAnd:] «to me»;
nice [HAIC] «pleasant»;
sky [SKAI] «sky»;
soda [COУDE] «carbonated drink».
Closed syllable in English
Finally, consider the vowels in a closed syllable… Here their pronunciation may seem more familiar to you, perhaps, with the exception of the letter uwhich is pronounced like a sound like [A]. A letter a — [E] (see table # 2).
Table 2. Closed syllable in English (listen in the examples below the table) Vowel letter Transcription Russian pronunciation
A a | [æ] | э |
E e | [e] | э |
I and | [ɪ] | и |
The o | [ɔ] | о |
U u | [ʌ] | а |
examples:
lip [LИP] «lip»;
but [BАT] «but»;
pet [PЭT] «pet»;
hot [XОT] «hot».
Note: Consonants at the end of words in a closed syllable are not stunned, as in Russian. So, we write «horn» and we say [ROCK]. There is no such thing in English, otherwise there would be confusion:
mad [MEД] «Crazy» — mat [MEТ] «rug».
Combinations of letters with the letter require special attention. r (see table # 3):
Table 3. Closed syllable. Letter combinations with rCombination vowel + r (listen) Transcription
ar | [ɑː] | long a |
er | [ɜː] | long yo |
urr | [ɜː] | long yo |
or | [ɔ:] | long about |
ur | [ɜː] | long yo |
yr | [ɜː] | long yo |
Examples of words with syllables from the table:
bar [BA:] «bar»;
her [Hyo:] «her»
fir [ФЁ:] «fir-tree»;
for [FO:] «for»;
fur [FOO:] «wool»;
Byrne [BYO: N] «Byrne» (proper name).
The letter itself r not pronounced, and the vowel in front of it is pronounced for a long time.
Source: https://englishforeducation.ru/otkrytyj-i-zakrytyj-slog-v-anglijskom-yazyke.html
English Sounds: The Complete Guide to Reading and Pronunciation
This article will help you understand the features of the pronunciation of English sounds, and what combinations of letters they can be expressed in writing.
For a more detailed study of the rules for reading words in English, use our «Reading Rules Guide».
English pronunciation
English often sounds more dynamic compared to smoother Russian. It is a little faster (about 10% — 15%, according to various studies), and sometimes it seems to us that not all words are pronounced in fast speech.
Despite the fact that the languages come from the same Indo-European family — which means that they are based on the same pronunciation system — there are a number of significant differences in the pronunciation of Russian and English sounds, words and phrases.
English has more vowel sounds than Russian. They are usually pronounced with less lip strain.
We have 6 of them: [a], [y], [o], [e], [and], [s], in English there are 12 of them: / ɪ /, / ɪː /, / ʌ /, / ɑː / , / æ /, / ɛ /, / ɜː /, / ɒ /, / ɔː /, / ʊ /, / ʊː /, / ə /.
English sounds generally come in two flavors:
short and long: / ɪ / and / ɪː /, / ɒ / and / ɔː /, / ʊ / and / ʊː / light and deeper: / ʌ / and / ɑː /
open and closed: / æ / and / ɛ /
Unique English vowel sounds:
/ æ/ Is a cross between A and E
/ ɜː / (soft O) — a cross between O and Yo
/ Ə / — weak schwa (extremely weak sound, a cross between A, O, E — pronounced in most unstressed syllables).
In English, our compound vowel sounds e [ye], yo [yo], yu [yu], i [ya] are absent, but there are diphthongs
English diphthongs are double sounds / aɪ / (time), / eɪ / (space), / ɔɪ / (boil) / ɛə / (care), / əʊ / (know) / aʊ / (now) / ɪə / (fear), and / ʊə / (priest).
The first diphthong sound is pronounced more clearly than the second. That is why we often have a hard time hearing or confuse words with diphthongs when listening.
English consonants often differ in their pronunciation, even sounds similar to Russian
In Russian there are as many as 36 consonant sounds (with 21 letters), but in English there are only 24. It is important to remember that even such sounds (for example, / p / or / d / pronounced differently than in Russian — see the table below for details).
Unique English consonant sounds:
/ w / — semi-vowel sound, a cross between U and B
/ ð / и / θ / — interdental sound (voiceless and voiced variations), a cross between B and Z (F and C in a voiceless variation)
/ ŋ / — nasal H
The main difference between the pronunciation of Russian and English consonants is that in Russian we often deafen the final consonants (for example, year and goth may sound the same), but English doesn’t. It is important to remember this, as we can confuse pairs of words (for example, bed — bet) and it is difficult to hear final consonants.
Also, the so-called «Clusters» — combinations of several consonants inside or at the joints of words. Words like three, sixth and others can cause pronunciation problems.
I recommend using the interactive sound table or the Cambridge mobile app to practice pronunciation and accent.
The same letter can represent several sounds, depending on the position in the word
The biggest challenge in learning English is mastering its reading rules.
Despite the fact that there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet (in contrast to the Russian 33), learning to read words and phrases in English is not so easy.
1 / Vowel sounds in the alphabet have a so-called «open» pronunciation, which is different from other European languages.
How to read the sounds of the English alphabet
2 / Vowel sounds in stressed words are read differently, depending on the type of syllable in which they stand.
3 / Unstressed vowel sounds are pronounced with a very weak sound schwa / ə /.
This sound is so weak that we often simply cannot hear it. In our English pronunciation, we often pronounce it too intensely.
For example, a word vegetable pronounced not VEDGETABL with the same intensity of all sounds, but / vedʒt (ə) b (ə) l /, that is, after a clear stressed syllable VE, there are reduced syllables, all the sounds of which are read with schwa, and they are almost inaudible (and often not at all).
I will tell you more about this feature of English stress in the article «How to learn to understand English by ear».
4 / Many vowels and consonants in writing are indicated by letter combinations that need to be remembered.
Errors in pronunciation lead to problems with listening to fast English speech. I recommend purchasing our «The Complete Guide to Reading Rules»… It will help fill in the gaps in your knowledge of pronunciation rules and help you avoid common mistakes.
Pronunciation and reading of vowels
Sound | Pronunciation feature | Typical combinations | Exception words |
/ Ə / | A weak unstressed sound is a cross between a very weak A and E | Any vowel without stress, mostly a, o, u, e | |
/ ɪ / | «And short» Lips are slightly stretched in a semi-smile, tongue in front of the mouth. We pronounce light I. | i in a closed syllableif, film,hise in endingsdancees, started | owomeneEnglish, decideawantsage, chocolateate |
/ ɪː / | «And long» Lips are slightly stretched, tongue in front of the mouth. We pronounce a long I. We do not strain our lips. | eesee,sleepmost words with easea, RESPONSIVEead, eat,pleasee in open syllabletree, be,these | i under stress in borrowed wordsdoine, policeiefie |
Source: https://stordar.ru/angliiskie-zvuki/
How to quickly learn to read English from scratch on your own. Tips for English learners
When you study a foreign language, you learn not only a set of vocabulary and grammar, you in any case come across the culture and peculiarities of the mentality of the people who speak this language. The best way to learn language and culture is reading in original … And in order to read in a foreign language, you must first learn to read in that language.
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. You can just get people to stop reading them.
~ Ray Bradbury
Does it exist an easy way to learn to read English ? If you studied English at school, you should have gotten an idea of how English letters are read, you know what transcription is and how basic letter combinations are read. If your level is not beginner, but for example intermediate, then you will be interested in the article «Books in English for intermediate level»
But, if at school or university you studied German or French, or your school base turned out to be smaller than you would like, and now you have decided to learn English, then let’s start with the very primary and basic and learn a few methods of where to start in order to master reading rules.
English alphabet
I think you know that English is different from Russian and German, in which we basically read and write. In English, the system is a little more complicated. The very first thing we need to do is learn the alphabet.
The English alphabet has 26 letters, including 21 consonants and 5 vowels. Knowledge of letters and the ability to pronounce them correctly is the key to successful and competent reading in English.
English alphabet with transcription of the names of letters.
A very easy way to memorize letters visually and by ear is with the help of a song. Watch the video and sing the song until you memorize the letters of the alphabet.
You can use the same method to teach the alphabet to your children and sing along with your little ones.
After studying the alphabet, let’s start learning the combination of letters and reading short words. There are a number of rules in English that you need to learn, practice and remember if you want to read English words correctly.
The same letter can be read in different ways, depending on the letters that surround it, as well as whether it is closed or open syllable.
Rules for reading English consonants
Many consonants read similarly to Russian consonants, such as letters m, n, l, b, f, z … You can see it in words like mom, lemon, finger, boy, zebra.
Letters such as t и d sound similar, but pronounced with aspirated… For example, the words table, teacher, dad, dirty.
Letter c has two reading options. Before letters i, e, y it reads like [s]— city, face, cyber. And before the rest of the vowels it reads like [k]— cat, cake, factory.
The vowel rule i, e, y works with the letter g… In front of them, it reads like [dʒ]— gym, George, giant. Before other consonants, the letter is read as [g].
Letter q always occurs in a combination of letters qu and reads like [kW]— quick, queen, square.
Letter j always reads like [dʒ]— jacket, jam, joy.
Table of the ratio of consonants and sounds in English.
How vowels are read in English
In English, a word can end in an open or closed syllable, which affects pronunciation. For example, the words cat, pot, sit end in a closed syllable and have vowels a, o, i give sounds [a, o, i].
Words such as name, home, five end with an open syllable, since there is a letter at the end of the word ewhich is not readable. But, thanks to her, the vowels in the middle of the word are read in the same way as they are pronounced in the alphabet, that is, the word name is read [neɪm].
Types of English vowel reading in stressed syllables.
Reading vowel combinations in English
There are certain combinations of letters that have well-established rules for reading, although English is the language of exceptions, and when reading more complex words, you should refer to the dictionary. The table below shows English vowel combinations with examples how they are read and how they sound.
Table of combinations of vowels in English.
And of course, there are exceptions to all the rules. However, do not worry and think that you will never be able to learn it. Everything can be understood, you just have to try a little and practice.
English diphthongs with transcription
When you learn the basic rules of reading, you will see that there are diphthong sounds that are quite difficult to reproduce in English, especially if you start learning the language not from childhood, but in adulthood.
Table of English diphthongs with transcription.
Transcription of sounds in English
Practice shows that when children learn a language, they must necessarily learn transcription, while adults do not want to learn it and it can be difficult for them.
If you still want to learn how to write and read the transcription, then great! And if not, then you can use online dictionaries where the word will be pronounced for you. One of the best dictionaries today is Multitran and the Lingvo online dictionary.
Remember to use dictionaries, not translators!
Here’s an example of reading short words with transcription:
English vowel table and transcription.
There are some advantages to being in the internet age. Sitting at home, you can learn a variety of knowledge online. For your attention video tutorial, which explains the basic principles of reading. Nevertheless, even having received knowledge through an online lesson, they need to be consolidated in order to form a skill.
In this section, we want to share with you the experience that was gained in practice, teaching students of different levels. These tips have proven their effectiveness and usefulness in language learning. They can be used for beginner to advanced levels. Use)
Learn English tongue twisters
Here tongue twisters, which are often aimed at practicing one sound, can help you. Here are some examples you can use.
English translation
Source: https://ienglish.ru/blog/interesno-ob-angliiskom/kak-viuchit-angliiskiy-bistro-samomu/kak-bistro-nauchitsia-chitat-po-angliiski
Vowel english letters
The phonetic system of many European languages is generally of the same type, has a certain structure.
Of course, intonation plays a big role in the pronunciation of vowels in English words. There are certain rules for running it up and down, as well as for individual turns, for example, there is and there are.
However, in the phonology of the English language, the presentation of the English letters and their corresponding phonemes is in order.
Let’s try to process and structure the existing extensive material for compact and easy assimilation, applying the principle of comparative studies — comparison with the phonetics of the Russian language where possible.
There are 6 vowels in English:
If you look closely at the uppercase and lowercase versions of the same letter, you will notice that vowels such as O and U have identical spellings.
Vowel transcription in English
Absolutely everyone who has come across the study of English phonetics has difficulty in correctly understanding the transcription of vowel sounds.
The fact is that in the transcriptional embodiment, the pronunciation of English vowels is not similar to the pronunciation of, for example, identical Russian vowels. This circumstance is primarily due to the different history of origin.
So, the system of English vowel phonemes goes back to diphthongic combinations of sounds.
For reference: diphthongic combinations (diphthongs) are a combination of two or more sounds. In this case, they can have different overtones and are designated by one letter.
Graphically transcribed sound is indicated by enclosing it either in square brackets ([]) or in oblique brackets (/ /)
Consider the transcription of English letters:
Letter | Designated sound |
— A a | [ei] |
— E e | [i:] * |
— I i | [ai] |
— O o | [Where] |
— U u | [ju:] |
— Y y | [wai] |
The sign «:», standing after the vowel sound, denotes the so-called longitude. This means that the sound needs to be pronounced continued, somewhat lingeringly.
Rules for reading vowels in English
However, the table above does not yet indicate that all sounds denoted by five English letters are transcribed in the same way.
As you know, there are only six vowels, but the sounds that can graphically represent these letters are much more — about 24.
To learn the rules for reading such sounds, scientists came to the conclusion that the reading of vowels depends on the type of syllable.
There are two types of syllables:
Speaking about the openness / closedness of a syllable, it should be understood that this is an organized phonetic system of phonemes in one word in a peculiar way.
A word can have from one to several syllables, and both open and closed can be present. According to statistics, almost all English words end with a closed syllable.
The theory of dividing a word into syllables in almost all languages is based precisely on vowels. When studying our native language, we always say to ourselves or out loud when we have to divide a word into syllables: «How many vowels there are in a word, so many syllables.» This really fits well with the division into syllables of English words.
So, to determine the number of syllables in a syllable:
- find vowels in the word,
- mentally or graphically draw vertical bars after each vowel. How many cut-off sectors will turn out — there are so many syllables in the word.
For example, let’s take the word independent:
- count the vowels: 4 (i, e, e, e)
- draw perpendicular lines: in-de-pen-dent
- there were also 4 segments, hence 4 syllables containing 4 vowels.
Vowel letters in open syllable type
An open syllable is a syllable that either consists of one vowel or ends in a vowel.
For example: in the word bar there is only one syllable, in the word ru-ler there are two syllables, the first of them is an open syllable, since it ends in the vowel u.
English vowels should be read in an open type of syllable as in the alphabet:
Letter | Designated sound |
— A a | [ei] |
— E e | [i:] |
— I i | [ai] |
— O o | [Where] |
— U u | [ju:] |
— Y y | [wai] |
Closed vowels
A closed syllable is a syllable ending in a consonant.
For example: in the word book — one syllable, ends with a consonant k, in the word dif-fi-cult — three syllables, the first and third of them are closed (in f and t), the second is open.
Features of the pronunciation of vowels in English
The vowels are read differently depending on the type of syllable. The letter R r stands apart in the reading rules. It greatly influences reading in both syllables.
For example, in the open type of syllable, the sound [r] seems to merge with the diphthong and sounds neutral — [ǝ]. And in the closed type, the so-called short vowels are combined with a semi-consonant sound [r].
It turns out this combination:
- [A] — [a:],
- [ɔ] — [ɔ:],
- [e], [I], [at] — [ǝ:].
That is, the short ones turn into long ones.
As for the rules for reading stressed vowels in a syllable, the letters u, a, o acquire the ability to reduce (that is, become super-short) and even drop out completely. The sound is neutral [ǝ].
For example: in words like sofa [‘soufǝ] or today [tǝ’dei]. Letters i, e, y, when reduced, pronounced as a sound [i]. For example: enemy [‘enimi].
If the vowel is unstressed, then the corresponding vowel sound can manifest itself in the fact that its length is shortened. Therefore, one can often observe (especially in colloquial speech) how pronouns she, he, we, me often not pronounced with a long [i:]and with a short [I].
Also, the absolute dropout of sounds (when it is not heard at all) can be observed in examples such as: lesson [‘lesn], open [‘ oupn], pencil [‘pensl].
Short vowels in English, examples
Before characterizing short and long vowels, it should be noted that they differ from each other not only in the time of pronunciation, but in articulation — by the means of the oral cavity that are involved in their formation.
Under stress, vowel sounds are read in a truncated form, that is, they are closely adjacent to the consonant sound following them.
Brief sounds (otherwise — reduced sounds) may differ in quality and quantity. Basically, they manifest themselves in prepositions and other official parts of speech.
There they are usually unstressed, so theoretically they cannot assume longitude. But depending on the pronunciation situation, they can be pronounced lingeringly or when emphasized in a rhythmic manner (phrasal stress).
Qualitative reduction is a weakening of a vowel, accompanied by a change in its quality and transformation into a sound of a neutral type.
Quantitative reduction is accompanied by a reduction in the duration of the vowel sound.
There is also a reduction of zero (full) when the vowel drops out completely.
Thus, all reduced forms can be called weak.
For example:
weak forms — you [ju ·, ju], at [әt].
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Long vowels in English, examples
There are much more long vowel sounds in the language. For the most part, they are pronounced in monophthongs — the articulation does not change during the entire duration of the sound.
As already mentioned, in transcription such vowels are denoted by the «:» sign.
For example:
- Good [gu: d]
- Arduous [a: djues]
- Green [gri: n]
Diphthongs in English, examples
Diphthongs (or two-vowel sounds) are not peculiar to the Russian language, therefore it is not so easy to assimilate them.
They are such complex (composite) sounds that consist of two vowel sounds that must be pronounced as closely as possible. It turns out that the two sounds simply merge into one.
The percussive and syllabic sound is the first of the sounds to be merged. This is the core of the diphthong. The second vowel in the diphthong is called a glide. It complements the core, makes the combination more harmonious and easier to pronounce.
Due to the fact that the core is a long sound, and the glide is short, the pronunciation of the diphthong in terms of the degree of expenditure of pronunciation efforts and duration is approximately equal to the classical English monophthong. Although, in general, we can say that diphthongs are pronounced not long, but drawn out.
Affects the pronunciation of the diphthong and the position in the word in relation to the consonants. So, before voiced consonants, it is pronounced shortly, and if the consonant is voiceless, then very briefly
For example: sofa (influenced by a voiceless consonant f).
English diphthong table
So, there are 8 diphthongs: [ai] [ei] [iə] [eə] [ͻi] [ʊə] [əʊ] [aʊ].
They are read more than clearly — as in the above transcription. However, there are words, such as dear (dear) and deer (deer), in which the vowel combinations ea and ee are pronounced the same — [iə].
Such cases must be memorized. Thus, we see that phonemic difficulties in English lie in wait for the learner at every step.
There can be only one advice: compiling for yourself a «cheat sheet» with tables of English vowels, as well as tireless practice in the pronunciation of sounds. This can be achieved by reading texts aloud.
It is best to ask an experienced tutor about the correct pronunciation of certain vowels or diphthongs, who will carefully and painstakingly show how certain sounds are pronounced in various types of syllables.
Source: https://eng911.ru/rules/alphabet/glasnye-bukvy-v-anglijskom.html
A vowel letter can represent different vowel sounds: hat [hæt], hate [heit], all [o:l], art [a:rt], any [‘eni].
(Одна гласная буква может передавать разные гласные звуки: hat [hæt], hate [heit], all [o:l], art [a:rt], any [‘eni].)
The same vowel sound is often represented by different vowel letters in writing: [ei] they, weigh, may, cake, steak, rain.
(Один и тот же гласный звук часто представлен разными гласными буквами на письме: [ei] they, weigh, may, cake, steak, rain.)
Open and closed syllables
(Открытые и закрытые слоги)
Open syllable: Kate [keit], Pete [pi:t], note [nout], site [sait], cute [kyu:t].
Closed syllable: cat [kæt], pet [pet], not [not], sit [sit], cut (the neutral sound [ə]).
Vowels and vowel combinations
The vowels A, E, I, O, U, Y alone, in combination with one another or with R, W represent different vowel sounds. The chart below lists the vowel sounds according to the American variant of pronunciation.
(Гласные A, E, I, O, U, Y по отдельности, в комбинации друг с другом или с R, W передают различные гласные звуки. В таблице ниже указаны гласные звуки согласно американскому варианту произношения.)
Sounds | Letters | Examples | Notes |
[i:] |
e, ee ea ie, ei |
be, eve, see, meet, sleep, meal, read, leave, sea, team, field, believe, receive |
been [i]; bread, deaf [e]; great, break [ei]; friend [e] |
[i] |
i y |
it, kiss, tip, pick, dinner, system, busy, pity, sunny |
machine, ski, liter, pizza [i:] |
[e] |
e ea |
let, tell, press, send, end, bread, dead, weather, leather |
meter [i:] sea, mean [i:] |
[ei] |
a ai, ay ei, ey ea |
late, make, race, able, stable, aim, wait, play, say, day, eight, weight, they, hey, break, great, steak |
said, says [e]; height, eye [ai] |
[æ] | a |
cat, apple, land, travel, mad; AmE: last, class, dance, castle, half |
|
[a:] |
ar a |
army, car, party, garden, park, father, calm, palm, drama; BrE: last, class, dance, castle, half |
war, warm [o:] |
[ai] |
i, ie y, uy |
ice, find, smile, tie, lie, die, my, style, apply, buy, guy |
|
[au] |
ou ow |
out, about, house, mouse, now, brown, cow, owl, powder |
group, soup [u:] know, own [ou] |
[o] | o | not, rock, model, bottle, copy | |
[o:] |
or o aw, au ought al, wa- |
more, order, cord, port, long, gone, cost, coffee, law, saw, pause, because, bought, thought, caught, hall, always, water, war, want |
work, word [ər] |
[oi] | oi, oy | oil, voice, noise, boy, toy | |
[ou] |
o oa, ow |
go, note, open, old, most, road, boat, low, own, bowl |
do, move [u:] how, owl [au] |
[yu:] |
u ew eu ue, ui |
use, duty, music, cute, huge, tune, few, dew, mew, new, euphemism, feud, neutral, hue, cue, due, sue, suit |
|
[u:] |
u o, oo ew ue, ui ou |
rude, Lucy, June, do, move, room, tool, crew, chew, flew, jewel, blue, true, fruit, juice, group, through, route; AmE: duty, new, sue, student |
guide, quite [ai]; build [i] |
[u] |
oo u ou |
look, book, foot, good, put, push, pull, full, sugar, would, could, should |
|
neutral sound [ə] |
u, o ou a, e o, i |
gun, cut, son, money, love, tough, enough, rough, about, brutal, taken, violent, memory, reason, family |
Also: stressed, [ʌ]; unstressed, [ə]. |
[ər] |
er, ur, ir or, ar ear |
serve, herb, burn, hurt, girl, sir, work, word, doctor, dollar, heard, earn, earnest, earth |
heart, hearth [a:] |
Note 1: The letter Y
The letter Y can function as a vowel or as a consonant. As a vowel, Y has the vowel sounds [i], [ai]. As a consonant, Y has the consonant sound [y] (i.e., a semivowel sound), usually at the beginning of the word and only in the syllable before a vowel.
[i]: any, city, carry, funny, mystery, synonym;
[ai]: my, cry, rely, signify, nylon, type;
[y]: yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you.
Примечание 1: Буква Y
Буква Y может функционировать как гласная или согласная. Как гласная, Y имеет гласные звуки [i], [ai]. Как согласная, Y имеет согласный звук [y] (т.е. полугласный звук), обычно в начале слова и только в слоге перед гласной.
[i]: any, city, carry, funny, mystery, synonym;
[ai]: my, cry, rely, signify, nylon, type;
[y]: yard, year, yes, yet, yield, you.
Note 2: Diphthongs
A diphthong is one indivisible vowel sound that consists of two parts. The first part is the main strong component (the nucleus); the second part is short and weak (the glide). A diphthong is always stressed on its first component: [au], [ou]. A diphthong forms one syllable. American linguists usually list five diphthongs: [ei], [ai], [au], [oi], [ou].
Примечание 2: Дифтонги
Дифтонг это один неделимый гласный звук, который состоит из двух частей. Первая часть главный сильный компонент (ядро); вторая часть короткая и слабая (скольжение). Дифтонг всегда имеет ударение на первом компоненте: [au], [ou]. Дифтонг образует один слог. Американские лингвисты обычно приводят пять дифтонгов: [ei], [ai], [au], [oi], [ou].
Note 3: The sound [o]
The sound [o] is short in British English. In the same words in American English, the sound [o] is a long sound colored as [a:]. This sound is often listed as [a:] in American materials for ESL students. In some words, there are two variants of pronunciation in AmE: [o:] or [o].
[o]: lot, rock, rob, bother, bottle, college, comment, document, modern, popular, respond, John, Tom;
[o:] or [o]: gone, coffee, office, borrow, orange, sorry, loss, lost, want, wash, water.
Примечание 3: Звук [o]
Звук [o] краткий в британском английском. В тех же словах в американском английском, звук [o] долгий звук, окрашенный как [a:]. Этот звук часто дается как [a:] в американских материалах для студентов ESL. В некоторых словах два варианта произношения в AmE: [o:] или [o].
[o]: lot, rock, rob, bother, bottle, college, comment, document, modern, popular, respond, John, Tom;
[o:] или [o]: gone, coffee, office, borrow, orange, sorry, loss, lost, want, wash, water.
Note 4: The neutral sound
Transcription symbols for the neutral sound are [ʌ] (caret) in stressed syllables (fun, son) and [ə] (schwa) in unstressed syllables (about, lesson). In American ESL materials, the neutral sound is often shown as [ə] (schwa) in both stressed and unstressed syllables.
Примечание 4: Нейтральный звук
Символы транскрипции для нейтрального звука: [ʌ] (caret) в ударных слогах (fun, son) и [ə] (schwa) в безударных слогах (about, lesson). В американских материалах ESL нейтральный звук часто дается как [ə] (schwa) и в ударных, и в безударных слогах.
Read more about vowel letters and sounds in Spelling Patterns for Vowels in the section Writing.
Прочитайте еще о гласных буквах и звуках в статье Spelling Patterns for Vowels в разделе Writing.
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All vowel sequences are pronounced with a smooth glide between
them both within words and between words. No glottal stop is
recommended, e.g. ruin, react, beyond, go out.
The most common sequences are formed by adding the
neutral vowel [ə] to a diphthong, especially to [aɪ]
and [aʊ],
e.g. lion, hour. The second element in these sequences is the weakest
or is even dropped.
In fluent English speech one word is not separated from another, the
end of one word flows straight on to the beginning of the next. Care
should be taken not to separate the words by a glottal stop. An
English speaker glides smoothly from the final vowel sound of the
preceding word to the initial vowel sound of the following word with
no break, no gap before the vowel.
The articles take the forms [ðɪ]
and [ən] before words beginning with a vowel sound to help us
glide continually from one word to another, e.g. the arm [ði: ‘ɑ:m],
an arm [ən ɑ:m].
The letter «r» spelled at the end of
words is pronounced before the next word beginning with a vowel
to link the words (the linking «r»), e.g. nearer and nearer
[‘nɪərər
ənd ‘nɪərə].
Recommendations
-
Take a mirror and practice the vowel sequences
[aɪə],
[aʊə]
making the second element very weak or do not pronounce it at all. -
Make sure you do not allow any glottal stop
within the vowel sequences or between the words. Join the
words smoothly. -
Blend the words together in fluent speech. Make use of the linking
“r” where necessary. Pronounce the articles as [ði] and [ən]
before words beginning with vowels.
Possible Mistakes
-
Russian learners can easily replace the English
vowel sequences [aɪə,
aʊə]
by the Russian sound combinations [ajə] or [ауə]
with the second element being too strong. The organs of speech
should hardly reach the position of the sounds [ɪ]
and [ʊ]
in the sequences. Watch your mouth in a mirror. No actual
movement of the jaw and the lips should be seen. -
Russian students of English often drop the sound
in the -ing-
form of verbs ending in [ɪ]
like studying, copying.
Think analytically, say the parts of a word separately, then put
them together smoothly. Do not swallow the sound of the
suffix. -
Russian students sometimes split the natural flow
of English speech into disconnected segments, i.e. words. Practice
saying a rhythmic group as one word. -
The usual fault is to insert a glottal stop before each word
beginning with a vowel. Make sure your speech flows with a smooth
transition from one word to the next.
In English as well as in Russian vowels in unstressed syllables are
usually reduced. The laws of reduction, in these languages are not
the same, however.
Reduction
is a historical process of weakening, shortening or
disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed positions. This phonetic
phenomenon, as well as assimilation, is closely connected with the
general development of the language system. Reduction reflects
the process of lexical and grammatical changes.
The neutral sound represents the reduced form of almost any vowel or
diphthong in the unstressed position, e.g.:
combine
[‘kɒmbaɪn]
project
[‘prɒdჳɪkt]
combine
[kəm’baɪn]
project
[prə’dჳekt]
The vowel sounds of the two related words are in contrast because of
different stress positions.
The sounds [ɪ]
and also [ʊ]
in the suffix -ful-
are very frequent realizations of the unstressed positions, e.g.
possibility
[pɒsɪ’bɪlɪtɪ],
beautiful
[‘bju:tɪfʊl].
There is also a tendency to retain the quality of
the unstressed vowel sound, e.g. retreat,
programme, situate. Non-reduced
unstressed sounds are often retained in:
-
compound words, e.g. blackboard,
oilfield, -
borrowings from the French and other languages,
e.g. bourgeoisie, kolkhoz.
Reduction is closely connected not only with word
stress but also with rhythm and sentence stress. Stressed words are
pronounced with great energy of breath. Regular loss of sentence
stress of certain words is connected with partial or complete loss of
their lexical significance. These words play the part of form-words
in a sentence.
So reduction is realized:
-
in unstressed syllables within words, e.g.
demonstrative [dɪ’mɒnstrətɪv]; -
in unstressed form-words, auxiliary and modal
verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within intonation groups and
phrases, e.g. What do you think you
can do? [ →wɒt
dju: Ɵɪŋk jʊ
kən du:]
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For the poetic device, see Assonance.
In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus «in harmony»). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning that the affected vowels do not need to be immediately adjacent, and there can be intervening segments between the affected vowels. Generally one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels, either progressively or regressively, within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of the trigger vowel. Common phonological features that define the natural classes of vowels involved in vowel harmony include vowel backness, vowel height, nasalization, roundedness, and advanced and retracted tongue root.
Vowel harmony is found in many agglutinative languages. The given domain of vowel harmony taking effect often spans across morpheme boundaries, and suffixes and prefixes will usually follow vowel harmony rules.
TerminologyEdit
The term vowel harmony is used in two different senses.
In the first sense, it refers to any type of long distance assimilatory process of vowels, either progressive or regressive. When used in this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony.
In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term umlaut is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. The term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation. This article will use «vowel harmony» for both progressive and regressive harmony.
«Long-distance»Edit
Harmony processes are «long-distance» in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments (usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to the assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation occurs across the entire word in many languages. This is represented schematically in the following diagram:
-
before
assimilationafter
assimilationVaCVbCVbC → VaCVaCVaC (Va = type-a vowel, Vb = type-b vowel, C = consonant)
In the diagram above, the Va (type-a vowel) causes the following Vb (type-b vowel) to assimilate and become the same type of vowel (and thus they become, metaphorically, «in harmony»).
The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize) are termed targets. When the vowel triggers lie within the root or stem of a word and the affixes contain the targets, this is called stem-controlled vowel harmony (the opposite situation is called dominant).[1] This is fairly common among languages with vowel harmony[citation needed] and may be seen in the Hungarian dative suffix:
-
Root Dative Gloss város város-nak ‘city’ öröm öröm-nek ‘joy’
The dative suffix has two different forms -nak/-nek. The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels (o and a are back vowels). The -nek form appears after the root with front vowels (ö and e are front vowels).
Features of vowel harmonyEdit
Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as
Rose & Walker (2011)[2] | Ko (2018)[3][4][5] | Dimension | Value |
---|---|---|---|
Backness Harmony | Palatal harmony | Vowel backness | back or front |
Round Harmony | Labial harmony | Roundedness | rounded or unrounded |
Height Harmony | Height harmony | Vowel height | high or low |
Tongue Root Harmony | Tongue root harmony | Advanced and retracted tongue root | advanced or retracted |
- Nasalization (i.e. oral or nasal) (in this case, a nasal consonant is usually the trigger)[citation needed]
In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular sets or classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels. Some languages have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages are proposed to have a rounding harmony superimposed over a backness harmony.
Even among languages with vowel harmony, not all vowels need to participate in the vowel conversions; these vowels are termed neutral. Neutral vowels may be opaque and block harmonic processes or they may be transparent and not affect them.[1] Intervening consonants are also often transparent.
Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony, or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an opaque neutral vowel is not involved. Van der Hulst & van de Weijer (1995) point to two such situations: polysyllabic trigger morphemes may contain non-neutral vowels from opposite harmonic sets and certain target morphemes simply fail to harmonize.[1] Many loanwords exhibit disharmony. For example, Turkish vakit, (‘time’ [from Arabic waqt]); *vakıt would have been expected.
Languages with vowel harmonyEdit
KoreanEdit
There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. These categories loosely follow the front (positive) and mid (negative) vowels. Middle Korean had strong vowel harmony; however, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Korean. In modern Korean, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia, adjectives, adverbs, conjugation, and interjections. The vowel ㅡ (eu) is considered a partially neutral and a partially negative vowel. There are other traces of vowel harmony in modern Korean: many native Korean words tend to follow vowel harmony such as 사람 (saram, ‘person’), and 부엌 (bu-eok, ‘kitchen’).
Positive/»light» (Yang 陽)/Plus Vowels
양성모음 (Yangseong moeum) |
ㅏ (a, [a]) | ㅑ (ya, [ja]) | ㅗ (o, [o]) | ㅘ (wa, [wa]) | ㅛ (yo, [jo]) | (ㆍ [ʌ]) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ㅐ (ae, [ɛ]) | ㅒ (yae, [jɛ]) | ㅚ (oe, [ø]) | ㅙ (wae, [wɛ]) | (ㆉ [joj]) | (ㆎ [ʌj]) | |
Negative/»dark» (Eum 陰)/Minus Vowels
음성모음 (eumseong moeum) |
ㅓ (eo, [ʌ,ə]) | ㅕ (yeo, [jʌ,jə]) | ㅜ (u, [u]) | ㅝ (wo, [wʌ,wə]) | ㅠ (yu, [ju]) | ㅡ (eu, [ɯ]) |
ㅔ (e, [e])) | ㅖ (ye, [je]) | ㅟ (wi, [y], [wi]) | ㅞ (we, [we]) | (ㆌ [juj]) | ㅢ (ui, [ɰi]) | |
Neutral (Jung 中)/Centre Vowels
중성모음 (jungseong moeum) |
ㅣ (i, [i]) |
MongolianEdit
-RTR | э[e] | ү[u] | ө[o] | и[i] |
---|---|---|---|---|
+RTR | а[a] | у[ʊ] | о[ɔ] |
Mongolian exhibits both a tongue root harmony and a rounding harmony. In particular, the tongue root harmony involves the vowels: /a, ʊ, ɔ/ (+RTR) and /i, u, e, o/ (-RTR). The vowel /i/ is phonetically similar to the -RTR vowels. However, it is largely transparent to vowel harmony. Rounding harmony only affects the open vowels, /e, o, a, ɔ/. Some sources refer to the primary harmonization dimension as pharyngealization or patalalness (among others), but neither of these is technically correct. Likewise, referring to ±RTR as the sole defining feature of vowel categories in Mongolian is not fully accurate either. In any case, the two vowel categories differ primarily with regards to tongue root position, and ±RTR is a convenient and fairly accurate descriptor for the articulatory parameters involved.[6][7][8]
Turkic languagesEdit
Turkic languages inherit their systems of vowel harmony from Proto-Turkic, which already had a fully developed system. The one exception is Uzbek, which has lost its vowel harmony due to extensive Persian influence; however, its closest relative, Uyghur, has retained Turkic vowel harmony.
AzerbaijaniEdit
Azerbaijani’s system of vowel harmony has both front/back and rounded/unrounded vowels.[9]
Azerbaijani Vowel Harmony | Front | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
Vowel | e, ə, i | ö, ü | a, ı | o, u |
Two form suffix (iki şəkilli şəkilçilər) | ə | a | ||
Four form suffix (dörd şəkilli şəkilçilər) | i | ü | ı | u |
TatarEdit
Tatar has no neutral vowels. The vowel é is found only in loanwords. Other vowels also could be found in loanwords, but they are seen as Back vowels. Tatar language also has a rounding harmony, but it is not represented in writing. O and ö could be written only in the first syllable, but vowels they mark could be pronounced in the place where ı and e are written.
Front | ä | e | i | ö | ü | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Back | a | ı | í | o | u | é |
KazakhEdit
Kazakh’s system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony that is not represented by the orthography.
KyrgyzEdit
Kyrgyz’s system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony, which strongly resembles that of Kazakh.
TurkishEdit
Turkish has a 2-dimensional vowel harmony system, where vowels are characterised by two features: [±front] and [±rounded]. There are two sets of vocal harmony systems: a simple one and a complex one. The simple one is concerned with the low vowels e, a and has only the [±front] feature (e front vs a back). The complex one is concerned with the high vowels i, ü, ı, u and has both [±front] and [±rounded] features (i front unrounded vs ü front rounded and ı back unrounded vs u back rounded). The close-mid vowels ö, o are not involved in vowel harmony processes.
Turkish Vowel Harmony | Front | Back | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |||||
Vowel | e /e/ | i /i/ | ö /ø/ | ü /y/ | a /a/ | ı /ɯ/ | o /o/ | u /u/ |
Simple system | e | a | ||||||
Complex system | i | ü | ı | u |
Front/back harmonyEdit
Turkish has two classes of vowels – front and back. Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Türkiye’de «in Turkey» but Almanya’da «in Germany».
Nom.sg | Gen.sg. | Nom.pl | Gen.pl. | Gloss |
---|---|---|---|---|
ip | ipin | ipler | iplerin | ‘rope’ |
el | elin | eller | ellerin | ‘hand’ |
kız | kızın | kızlar | kızların | ‘girl’ |
Rounding harmonyEdit
In addition, there is a secondary rule that i and ı in suffixes tend to become ü and u respectively after rounded vowels, so certain suffixes have additional forms. This gives constructions such as Türkiye’dir «it is Turkey», kapıdır «it is the door», but gündür «it is the day», karpuzdur «it is the watermelon».
ExceptionsEdit
Not all suffixes obey vowel harmony perfectly.
In the suffix -(i)yor, the o is invariant, while the i changes according to the preceding vowel; for example sönüyor – «he/she/it fades». Likewise, in the suffix -(y)ken, the e is invariant: Roma’dayken – «When in Rome»; and so is the i in the suffix -(y)ebil: inanılabilir – «credible». The suffix -ki exhibits partial harmony, never taking a back vowel but allowing only the front-voweled variant -kü: dünkü – «belonging to yesterday»; yarınki – «belonging to tomorrow».
Most Turkish words do not only have vowel harmony for suffixes, but also internally. However, there are many exceptions.
Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (thus forms like bu|gün «this|day» = «today» are permissible). Vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords, as in otobüs – from French «autobus». There are also a few native modern Turkish words that do not follow the rule (such as anne «mother» or kardeş «sibling» which used to obey vowel harmony in their older forms, ana and karındaş, respectively). However, in such words, suffixes nevertheless harmonize with the final vowel; thus annesi – «his/her mother», and voleybolcu – «volleyballer».
In some loanwords the final vowel is an a, o or u and thus looks like a back vowel, but is phonetically actually a front vowel, and governs vowel harmony accordingly. An example is the word saat, meaning «hour» or «clock», a loanword from Arabic. Its plural is saatler. This is not truly an exception to vowel harmony itself; rather, it is an exception to the rule that a denotes a front vowel.
Disharmony tends to disappear through analogy, especially within loanwords; e.g. Hüsnü (a man’s name) < earlier Hüsni, from Arabic husnî; Müslüman «Moslem, Muslim (adj. and n.)» < Ottoman Turkish müslimân, from Persian mosalmân).
Uralic languagesEdit
Many, though not all, Uralic languages show vowel harmony between front and back vowels. Vowel harmony is often hypothesized to have existed in Proto-Uralic, though its original scope remains a matter of discussion.
SamoyedicEdit
Vowel harmony is found in Nganasan and is reconstructed also for Proto-Samoyedic.
HungarianEdit
Vowel typesEdit
Hungarian, like its distant relative Finnish, has the same system of front, back, and intermediate (neutral) vowels but is more complex than the one in Finnish, and some vowel harmony processes. The basic rule is that words including at least one back vowel get back vowel suffixes (karba – in(to) the arm), while words excluding back vowels get front vowel suffixes (kézbe – in(to) the hand). Single-vowel words which have only the neutral vowels (i, í or é) are unpredictable, but e takes a front-vowel suffix.
One essential difference in classification between Hungarian and Finnish is that standard Hungarian (along with 3 out of 10 local dialects) does not observe the difference between Finnish ‘ä’ [æ] and ‘e’ [e] – the Hungarian front vowel ‘e’ [ɛ] is closely pronounced as the Finnish front vowel ‘ä’ [æ]. 7 out of the 10 local dialects have the vowel ë [e] which has never been part of the Hungarian alphabet, and thus is not used in writing.
Front | e | é | i | í | ö | ő | ü | ű |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Back | a | á | — | — | o | ó | u | ú |
Behaviour of neutral vowelsEdit
Unrounded front vowels (or Intermediate or neutral vowels) can occur together with either back vowels (e.g. répa carrot, kocsi car) or rounded front vowels (e.g. tető, tündér), but rounded front vowels and back vowels can occur together only in words of foreign origins (e.g. sofőr = chauffeur, French word for driver). The basic rule is that words including at least one back vowel take back vowel suffixes (e.g. répá|ban in a carrot, kocsi|ban in a car), while words excluding back vowels usually take front vowel suffixes (except for words including only the vowels i or í, for which there is no general rule, e.g. liszt|et, híd|at).
open | middle | closed | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Back («low») | a á | o ó | u ú | |
Front («high») | unrounded (neutral) | e é | i í | |
rounded | ö ő | ü ű |
Some other rules and guidelines to consider:
- Compound words get suffix according to the last word, e.g.: ártér (floodplain) compound of ár + tér gets front vowel suffix just as the word tér when stands alone (tér|en, ártér|en)
- In case of words of obvious foreign origins: only the last vowel counts (if it is not i or í): sofőr|höz, nüansz|szal, generál|ás, október|ben, parlament|ben, szoftver|rel
- If the last vowel of the foreign word is i or í, then the last but one vowel will be taken into consideration, e.g. papír|hoz, Rashid|dal. If the foreign word includes only the vowels i or í then it gets front vowel suffix, e.g.: Mitch-nek ( = for Mitch)
- There are some non-Hungarian geographical names that have no vowels at all (e.g. the Croatian island of Krk), in which case as the word does not include back vowel, it gets front vowel suffix (e.g. Krk-re = to Krk)
- For acronyms: the last vowel counts (just as in case of foreign words), e.g.: HR (pronounced: há-er) gets front vowel suffix as the last pronounced vowel is front vowel (HR-rel = with HR)
- Some 1-syllable Hungarian words with i, í or é are strictly using front suffixes (gép|re, mély|ről, víz > viz|et, hír|ek), while some others can take back suffixes only (héj|ak, szíj|ról, nyíl > nyil|at, zsír|ban, ír|ás)
- Some foreign words that have fit to the Hungarian language and start with back vowel and end with front vowel can take either front or back suffixes (so can be optionally considered foreign word or Hungarian word): farmer|ban or farmer|ben
Suffixes with multiple formsEdit
Grammatical suffixes in Hungarian can have one, two, three, or four forms:
- one form: every word gets the same suffix regardless of the included vowels (e.g. -kor)
- two forms (most common): words get either back vowel or front vowel suffix (as mentioned above) (e.g. -ban/-ben)
- three forms: there is one back vowel form and two front vowel forms; one for words whose last vowel is rounded front vowel and one for words whose last vowel is not rounded front vowel (e.g. -hoz/-hez/-höz)
- four forms: there are two back vowel forms and two front vowel forms (e.g. —ot/-at/-et/-öt or simply -t, if the last sound is a vowel)
An example on basic numerals:
-kor (at, for time) | -ban/-ben (in) | -hoz/-hez/-höz (to) | -t/-ot/-at/-et/-öt (accusative) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Back | (regular stem) | hat (6) | hatkor nyolckor háromkor – egykor négykor kilenckor tízkor ötkor kettőkor |
hatban nyolcban háromban százban |
hathoz nyolchoz háromhoz százhoz |
hatot |
(low-vowel stem) | nyolc (8) három (3) száz (100) |
nyolcat hármat százat |
||||
Front | unrounded (neutral) | egy (1) négy (4) kilenc (9) tíz (10) |
egyben négyben kilencben tízben ötben kettőben |
egyhez négyhez kilenchez tízhez |
egyet négyet kilencet tízet |
|
rounded | öt (5) kettő (2) |
öthöz kettőhöz |
ötöt kettőt |
MansiEdit
Vowel harmony occurred in Southern Mansi.
KhantyEdit
In the Khanty language, vowel harmony occurs in the Eastern dialects, and affects both inflectional and derivational suffixes. The Vakh-Vasyugan dialect has a particularly extensive system of vowel harmony, with seven different front-back pairs:[11]
Front | /æ/ | /ø/ | /y/ | /i/ | /ɪ/ | /ʏ/ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Back | /ɑ/ | /o/ | /u/ | /ɯ/ | /ʌ/ | /ʊ/ |
The vowels /e/, /œ/ (front) and /ɔ/ (back) can only occur in the first syllable of a word, and do not actively participate in vowel harmony, but they do trigger it.
Vowel harmony is lost in the Northern and Southern dialects, as well as in the Surgut dialect of Eastern Khanty.
MariEdit
Most varieties of the Mari language have vowel harmony.
ErzyaEdit
The Erzya language has a limited system of vowel harmony, involving only two vowel phonemes: /e/ (front) versus /o/ (back).
Moksha, the closest relative of Erzya, has no phonemic vowel harmony, though /ə/ has front and back allophones in a distribution similar to the vowel harmony in Erzya.
Finnic languagesEdit
Vowel harmony is found in most of the Finnic languages. It has been lost in Livonian and in Standard Estonian, where the front vowels ü ä ö occur only in the first (stressed) syllable. South Estonian Võro (and Seto) language as well as some [North] Estonian dialects, however, retain vowel harmony.
FinnishEdit
A diagram illustrating vowel harmony in Finnish.
Finnish vowel harmony and case agreement exemplified by mahdollisissa yllättävissä tilanteissa («in possible unexpected situations»): mahdollinen takes -ssa, yllättävä takes -ssä and tilanne, with a neutral vowel first but a back vowel second, takes -ssa.
In the Finnish language, there are three classes of vowels – front, back, and neutral, where each front vowel has a back vowel pairing. Grammatical endings such as case and derivational endings – but not enclitics – have only archiphonemic vowels U, O, A, which are realized as either back [u, o, ɑ] or front [y, ø, æ] inside a single word. From vowel harmony it follows that the initial syllable of each single (non-compound) word controls the frontness or backness of the entire word. Non-initially, the neutral vowels are transparent to and unaffected by vowel harmony. In the initial syllable:
- a back vowel causes all non-initial syllables to be realized with back (or neutral) vowels, e.g. pos+ahta+(t)a → posahtaa
- a front vowel causes all non-initial syllables to be realized with front (or neutral) vowels, e.g. räj+ahta+(t)a → räjähtää.
- a neutral vowel acts like a front vowel, but does not control the frontness or backness of the word: if there are back vowels in non-initial syllables, the word acts like it began with back vowels, even if they come from derivational endings, e.g. sih+ahta+(t)a → sihahtaa cf. sih+ise+(t)a → sihistä
For example:
- kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla
- kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella
- sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)
- käyrä begins without back vowels → käyrällä
- tuote begins with back vowels → tuotteessa
- kerä begins with a neutral vowel → kerällä
- kera begins with a neutral vowel, but has a noninitial back vowel → keralla
Some dialects that have a sound change opening diphthong codas also permit archiphonemic vowels in the initial syllable. For example, standard ‘ie’ is reflected as ‘ia’ or ‘iä’, controlled by noninitial syllables, in the Tampere dialect, e.g. tiä ← tie but miakka ← miekka.
… as evidenced by tuotteessa (not *tuotteessä). Even if phonologically front vowels precede the suffix -nsa, grammatically it is preceded by a word controlled by a back vowel. As shown in the examples, neutral vowels make the system unsymmetrical, as they are front vowels phonologically, but leave the front/back control to any grammatical front or back vowels. There is little or no change in the actual vowel quality of the neutral vowels.
As a consequence, Finnish speakers often have problems with pronouncing foreign words which do not obey vowel harmony. For example, olympia is often pronounced olumpia. The position of some loans is unstandardized (e.g. chattailla/chättäillä) or ill-standardized (e.g. polymeeri, sometimes pronounced polumeeri, and autoritäärinen, which violate vowel harmony). Where a foreign word violates vowel harmony by not using front vowels because it begins with a neutral vowel, then last syllable generally counts, although this rule is irregularly followed.[12] Experiments indicate that e.g. miljonääri always becomes (front) miljonääriä, but marttyyri becomes equally frequently both marttyyria (back) and marttyyriä (front), even by the same speaker.
With respect to vowel harmony, compound words can be considered separate words. For example, syyskuu («autumn month» i.e. September) has both u and y, but it consists of two words syys and kuu, and declines syys·kuu·ta (not *syyskuutä). The same goes for enclitics, e.g. taaksepäin «backwards» consists of the word taakse «to back» and -päin «-wards», which gives e.g. taaksepäinkään (not *taaksepäinkaan or *taaksepainkaan). If fusion takes place, the vowel is harmonized by some speakers, e.g. tälläinen pro tällainen ← tämän lainen.
Some Finnish words whose stems contain only neutral vowels exhibit an alternating pattern in terms of vowel harmony when inflected or forming new words through derivation. Examples include meri «sea», meressä «in the sea» (inessive), but merta (partitive), not *mertä; veri «blood», verestä «from the blood» (elative), but verta (partitive), not *vertä; pelätä «to be afraid», but pelko «fear», not *pelkö; kipu «pain», but kipeä «sore», not *kipea.
Helsinki slang has slang words that have roots violating vowel harmony, e.g. Sörkka. This can be interpreted as Swedish influence.
YokutsEdit
Vowel harmony is present in all Yokutsan languages and dialects. For instance, Yawelmani has 4 vowels (which additionally may be either long or short). These can be grouped as in the table below.
Unrounded | Rounded | |
---|---|---|
High | i | u |
Low | a | ɔ |
Vowels in suffixes must harmonize with either /u/ or its non-/u/ counterparts or with /ɔ/ or non-/ɔ/ counterparts. For example, the vowel in the aorist suffix appears as /u/ when it follows a /u/ in the root, but when it follows all other vowels it appears as /i/. Similarly, the vowel in the nondirective gerundial suffix appears as /ɔ/ when it follows a /ɔ/ in the root; otherwise it appears as /a/.
Word | IPA | Comment |
---|---|---|
-hun/-hin | (aorist suffix) | |
muṭhun | [muʈhun] | ‘swear (aorist)’ |
giy̓hin | [ɡijˀhin] | ‘touch (aorist)’ |
gophin | [ɡɔphin] | ‘take of infant (aorist)’ |
xathin | [xathin] | ‘eat (aorist)’ |
-tow/-taw | (nondirective gerundial suffix) | |
goptow | [ɡɔptɔw] | ‘take care of infant (nondir. ger.)’ |
giy̓taw | [ɡijˀtaw] | ‘touch (nondir. ger.)’ |
muṭtaw | [muʈtaw] | ‘swear (nondir. ger.)’ |
xattaw | [xatːaw] | ‘eat (nondir. ger.)’ |
In addition to the harmony found in suffixes, there is a harmony restriction on word stems where in stems with more than one syllable all vowels are required to be of the same lip rounding and tongue height dimensions. For example, a stem must contain all high rounded vowels or all low rounded vowels, etc. This restriction is further complicated by (i) long high vowels being lowered and (ii) an epenthetic vowel [i] which does not harmonize with stem vowels.
SumerianEdit
There is some evidence for vowel harmony according to vowel height or ATR in the prefix i3/e- in inscriptions from pre-Sargonic Lagash (the specifics of the pattern have led a handful of scholars to postulate not only an /o/ phoneme, but even an /ɛ/ and, most recently, an /ɔ/)[13] Many cases of partial or complete assimilation of the vowel of certain prefixes and suffixes to one in the adjacent syllable are reflected in writing in some of the later periods, and there is a noticeable though not absolute tendency for disyllabic stems to have the same vowel in both syllables.[14] What appears to be vowel contraction in hiatus (*/aa/, */ia/, */ua/ > a, */ae/ > a, */ue/ > u, etc.) is also very common.
Other languagesEdit
Vowel harmony occurs to some degree in many other languages, such as
- Several dialects of Arabic (see imala) including:
- Palestinian Arabic[15]
- Iraqi Arabic
- Lebanese Arabic
- Akan languages (tongue root position)
- Assamese
- Australian Aboriginal languages
- Jingulu
- Warlpiri
- Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (vowel harmony of one particular timbre across all vowels of a word)[16]
- Several Bantu languages such as:
- Standard Lingala (height)
- Kgalagadi (height)[17]
- Malila (height)[18]
- Phuthi (right-to-left and left-to-right)[17]
- Shona[19]
- Southern Sotho (right-to-left and left-to-right)[17]
- Northern Sotho (right-to-left and left-to-right)[17]
- Tswana (right-to-left and left-to-right)[17]
- Bezhta
- Bengali
- Some Chadic languages, such as Buwal
- Chukchi
- Coeur d’Alene (tongue root position and height)
- Coosan languages
- Dusun languages
- Iberian languages
- Astur-Leonese[20]
- Galician[20] and Portuguese dialects
- Catalan/Valencian[21]
- Eastern Andalusian Spanish[21]
- Murcian Spanish[21]
- Igbo (tongue root position)
- Italo-Romance languages: several Swiss Italian dialects (including total vowel harmony systems).[22]
- Japanese language — in some of the Kansai dialects.[23] Additionally, some[who?] consider that vowel harmony must have existed at one time in Old Japanese, though there is no broad consensus. See the pertinent Phonology.
- Maiduan languages
- Nez Percé
- Nilotic languages
- Buchan Scots is a Scots dialect with vowel height harmony, compare [here] «hairy», [rili] «really». This effect is blocked by voiced obstruents and certain consonant clusters: [bebi] «baby», [lʌmpi] «lumpy».[24]
- Somali
- Takelma
- Telugu
- Several Tibetic languages, including Lhasa Tibetan[25]
- Tungusic languages, such as Manchu
- Tuvan[26]
- Utian languages
- Urhobo
- Yurok and Qiang are unique in having rhotic vowel harmony.
Other types of harmonyEdit
Although vowel harmony is the most well-known harmony, not all types of harmony that occur in the world’s languages involve only vowels. Other types of harmony involve consonants (and is known as consonant harmony). Rarer types of harmony are those that involve tone or both vowels and consonants (e.g. postvelar harmony).
Vowel–consonant harmonyEdit
Some languages have harmony processes that involve an interaction between vowels and consonants. For example, Chilcotin has a phonological process known as vowel flattening (i.e. post-velar harmony) where vowels must harmonize with uvular and pharyngealized consonants.
Chilcotin has two classes of vowels:
- «flat» vowels [ᵊi, e, ᵊɪ, o, ɔ, ə, a]
- non-«flat» vowels [i, ɪ, u, ʊ, æ, ɛ]
Additionally, Chilcotin has a class of pharyngealized «flat» consonants [tsˤ, tsʰˤ, tsʼˤ, sˤ, zˤ]. Whenever a consonant of this class occurs in a word, all preceding vowels must be flat vowels.
[jətʰeɬtsˤʰosˤ] | ‘he’s holding it (fabric)’ |
[ʔapələsˤ] | ‘apples’ |
[natʰákʼə̃sˤ] | ‘he’ll stretch himself’ |
If flat consonants do not occur in a word, then all vowels will be of the non-flat class:
[nænɛntʰǽsʊç] | ‘I’ll comb hair’ |
[tetʰǽskʼɛn] | ‘I’ll burn it’ |
[tʰɛtɬʊç] | ‘he laughs’ |
Other languages of this region of North America (the Plateau culture area), such as St’át’imcets, have similar vowel–consonant harmonic processes.
Syllabic synharmonyEdit
Syllabic synharmony was a process in the Proto-Slavic language ancestral to all modern Slavic languages. It refers to the tendency of frontness (palatality) to be generalised across an entire syllable. It was therefore a form of consonant–vowel harmony in which the property ‘palatal’ or ‘non-palatal’ applied to an entire syllable at once rather than to each sound individually.
The result was that back vowels were fronted after j or a palatal consonant, and consonants were palatalised before j or a front vowel. Diphthongs were harmonized as well, although they were soon monophthongized because of a tendency to end syllables with a vowel (syllables were or became open). This rule remained in place for a long time, and ensured that a syllable containing a front vowel always began with a palatal consonant, and a syllable containing j was always preceded by a palatal consonant and followed by a front vowel.
A similar process occurs in Skolt Sami, where palatalization of consonants and fronting of vowels is a suprasegmental process applying to a whole syllable. Suprasegmental palatalization is marked with the letter ʹ, which is a Modifier letter prime, for example in the word vääʹrr ‘mountain, hill’.
See alsoEdit
- A-mutation
- Ablaut reduplication
- Apophony
- Consonant harmony
- Consonant mutation
- Germanic umlaut
- I-mutation
- Metaphony
- U-mutation
ReferencesEdit
- ^ a b c van der Hulst, H., & van de Weijer, J. (1995). Vowel harmony. In J. A. Goldsmith (Ed.),
The handbook of phonological theory (pp. 495–534). Oxford: Blackwell. - ^ Rose, S.; Walker, R. (2011). «Harmony Systems.». In J. Goldsmith; J. Riggle; A. Yu (eds.). Handbook of Phonological Theory (2nd ed.). Blackwell.
- ^ Ko, S. (2018). Tongue Root Harmony and Vowel Contrast in Northeast Asian Languages. Otto Harrassowitz.
- ^ Ko, S., Joseph, A., & Whitman, J. (2014). Comparative consequences of the tongue root harmony analysis for proto-Tungusic, proto-Mongolic, and proto-Korean. In M. Robbeets & W. Bisang (Eds.). Paradigm Change: In the Transeurasian languages and beyond (pp. 141-176). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
- ^ Ko, S. (2011). Vowel contrast and vowel harmony shift in the Mongolic languages. Language Research, 47(1), 23-43.
- ^ Svantesson, J.-O., Tsendina, A., Karlsson, A., & Franzén, V. (2005). Vowel Harmony. In The Phonology of Mongolian (pp. 46-57). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Godfrey, R. (2012). Opaque intervention in Khalkha Mongolian vowel harmony: A contrastive account. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics, 22(1), 1-14.
- ^ Barrere, I., Janhunen, J. (2019). Mongolian Vowel Harmony in a Eurasian Context. International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics, 1 (1).
- ^ Öztopçu, Kurtuluş (2003). Elementary Azerbaijani (2. printing ed.). Santa Monica, Calif. ; İstanbul: [Simurg]. pp. 32, 49. ISBN 975-93773-0-6.
- ^ Examples from Roca & Johnson (1999:150)
- ^ Gulya, János (1966). Eastern Ostyak chrestomathy. Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic series. Vol. 51. pp. 37–39.
- ^ Ringen, Catherine O.; Heinämäki, Orvokki (1999). «Variation in Finnish Vowel Harmony: An OT Account». Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 17 (2): 303–337. doi:10.1023/A:1006158818498. S2CID 169988008.
- ^ Smith, Eric J M (2007). «Harmony and the Vowel Inventory of Sumerian». Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 57.
- ^ Michalowski, Piotr (2008). «Sumerian». In Woodard, Roger D (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum. Cambridge University Press. p. 17.
- ^ Issam M. Abu-Salim Journal of Linguistics Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1987), pp. 1–24
- ^ Geoffrey Khan (16 June 2016). The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of the Assyrian Christians of Urmi (4 vols). BRILL. pp. 138–. ISBN 978-90-04-31393-4.
- ^ a b c d e Derek Nurse, Gérard Philippson, The Bantu languages, Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-7007-1134-1
- ^ Lojenga, Constance Kutsch. «Two types of vowel harmony in Malila (M.24)» (PDF). SIL, Leiden University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 22 November 2009.
- ^ Beckman, Jill N. (1997). «Positional Faithfulness, Positional Neutralisation and Shona Vowel Harmony». Phonology. 14 (1): 1–46. doi:10.1017/S0952675797003308. ISSN 0952-6757. JSTOR 4420090. S2CID 8386444.
- ^ a b «Álvaro Arias. «La armonización vocálica en fonología funcional (de lo sintagmático en fonología a propósito de dos casos de metafonía hispánica)», Moenia 11 (2006): 111–139″.
- ^ a b c Lloret (2007)
- ^ Delucchi, Rachele (2016). Fonetica e fonologia dell’armonia vocalica. Esiti di -A nei dialetti della Svizzera italiana in prospettiva romanza. Tübingen: Narr Francke Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7720-8509-3.
- ^ Z. Yoshida, Yuko. «Accents in Tokyo and Kyoto Japanese Vowel Quality in terms of Duration and Licensing Potency» (PDF). Retrieved 25 October 2016.
- ^ Paster, Mary (2004). «Vowel height harmony and blocking in Buchan Scots» (PDF). Phonology. 21 (3): 359–407. doi:10.1017/S0952675704000314. S2CID 53455589.
- ^ Denwood, Philip (January 1999). Tibetan. ISBN 9027238030.
- ^ Smolek, Amy (2011). Vowel Harmony in Tuvan and Igbo: Statistical and Optimality Theoretic Analyses. Undergraduate Thesis, Swarthmore College https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/linguistics/2011_Smolek.pdf
BibliographyEdit
- Arias, Álvaro (2006): «La armonización vocálica en fonología funcional (de lo sintagmático en fonología a propósito de dos casos de metafonía hispánica)», Moenia 11: 111–139.
- Delucchi, Rachele (2016), Fonetica e fonologia dell’armonia vocalica. Esiti di -A nei dialetti della Svizzera italiana in prospettiva romanza, vol. Romanica Helvetica 134, Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7720-8509-3
- Jacobson, Leon Carl. (1978). DhoLuo vowel harmony: A phonetic investigation. Los Angeles: University of California.
- Krämer, Martin. (2003). Vowel harmony and correspondence theory. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Li, Bing. (1996). Tungusic vowel harmony: Description and analysis. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.
- Lloret, Maria-Rosa (2007), «On the Nature of Vowel Harmony: Spreading with a Purpose», in Bisetto, Antonietta; Barbieri, Francesco (eds.), Proceedings of the XXXIII Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, pp. 15–35
- Piggott, G. & van der Hulst, H. (1997). Locality and the nature of nasal harmony. Lingua, 103, 85-112.
- Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999), A Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing
- Shahin, Kimary N. (2002). Postvelar harmony. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub.
- Smith, Norval; & Harry van der Hulst (Eds.). (1988). Features, segmental structure and harmony processes (Pts. 1 & 2). Dordrecht: Foris. ISBN 90-6765-399-3 (pt. 1), ISBN 90-6765-430-2 (pt. 2 ) .
- Vago, Robert M. (Ed.). (1980). Issues in vowel harmony: Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistic Conference on Vowel Harmony, 14 May 1977. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
- Vago, Robert M. (1994). Vowel harmony. In R. E. Asher (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (pp. 4954–4958). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
- Walker, R. L. (1998). Nasalization, Neutral Segments, and Opacity Effects (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Santa Cruz.
Check the Rhyme
Because of your native language, you will have a distorted perception of foreign vowel sounds.
But with proper training, you will appreciate your target language vowels just as much as your native language vowels. But it’s not enough to hear vowel sounds in isolation.
You have to hear them within real words and phrases. This is where musical rhyme training can be super useful.
What is a Rhyme, Idahosa?
I always get irritated when people argue with me about which words rhyme with which.
First off buddy, I’m an incredible freestyle rapper – so I know my rhymes!! Second off, rhyming is not a matter of personal taste. There is a clear-cut science to it.
A rhyme is just the repetition of a particular vowel sound.
For example, the words in the columns below all rhyme with one another because they share the same vowel sound.
/æ/– cat, hat, bat, fat, mat, sat
/ɪ/ – sit, tin, rip, thick, him, it
/ʊ/ – hook, took, shook, look, rook, cook
/ʌ/ – luck, buck, muck, shuck, huck, cluck
Notice that the only thing that changes is the first consonant sound. The consonant sound after the vowel is the same for each word.
When two words or phrases differ by only one sound, they are minimal pairs.
Minimal pairs are the most complete types of rhymes. But words that are NOT minimal pairs can still rhyme as long as the emphasis is on the shared vowel sound.
For example, here are two of the sets of rhyming words that do NOT share the same ending consonants.
/æ/ – cat, rap, laugh, pal, hash
/ɪ/ – sit, tin, rip, thick, him
Musical Rhyming & Language Learning
Many genres of lyrical music rely on rhyming due to its aesthetic appeal. The rhyming syllables align with musical stresses, which makes the rhyming words stand out more.
This musical repetition of vowel sounds can be very useful to us language learners trying to appreciate new vowel sounds in our target languages.
This is why I put so much emphasis on rapped lyrics (as opposed to sung lyrics). Since rapping has simple melodies, the rapper has to focus more on rhyming to keep things interesting.
As you’ve learned, awareness for rhythm and vowels are important elements of language learning. Having these two things emphasized with music does a lot to help us feel and notice these sounds.
English Vowel Example
Imagine you are studying English and have a hard time hearing the /eɪ/ diphthong (two vowels combined into one sound).
You discover this verse from the song “Jazzmatazz” by New Orleans rap artist Jay Electronica. In the verse, the artist bases a rhyme scheme around this /eɪ/ syllable:
|
If you listen to this a few times on repeat, this /eɪ/ diphthong will start to stand out to you. Next time you hear a native English speaker make the sound, you will identify and link it to these lyrics. Then you’ll start to truly appreciate the sound when you try to understand English speakers.
This can only occur when you pay close attention, and do so repeatedly. The most fun way to do this is through music.
You can achieve this same effect by listening to recordings of native speakers saying rhyming words, but who has time for that?
You’re going to need to have A LOT of repetitions before you appreciate foreign language sounds. So get on Youtube and get started with your favorite target language music now.
Portuguese Vowel Example
Here’s an example of the same phenomenon in Brazilian Portuguese. But this time, with the nasal /ẽĩ/ diphthong. This is a sound that non-native Portuguese speakers often struggle to appreciate:
|
Once again, the repetition of the vowel sound in the lyrics slowly helps you recognize and appreciate this sound in normal Portuguese speech.
You just need to know that the sound exists in the first place. Otherwise, you will automatically perceive the sound as something it’s not – and so never learn it. This is where knowing IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) can come in handy.
Battle Rap Example
|
Scripts vs. Sounds
The rhyming words (in bold) do not normally share the same vowel sounds in English. But English is flexible enough to allow me to alter these vowel sounds so that they all match up, while still having each word understood.
It might ruffle the feathers of my 8th grade English teacher since the words don’t rhyme on paper, but he was a bozo – so who cares?
Remember, you can never rely on the script; it’s all about the sound.
What matches up in this stanza is are the vowels /i/ and /ɛ̃/, as you can hear in my repetition of the rhyming words below.
Note how we reconcile the inconsistency in spelling once we use the IPA symbols. When I want to think about speech in any language, I think about it in IPA.
I use IPA because it is consistent and based on the reality of sound.
Every speech sound has only one IPA symbol and every IPA symbol associates to just one sound. That way, there is no ambiguity about whether the vowels of two words match up or not.
IPA can look intimidating with all its strange symbols, but you can quickly learn which symbol goes to which sound.
Below, I select each of the vowels and diphthongs from English and say two words that contain that vowel/diphthong in a recording.
Vowel Awareness Exercise
To end this lesson, we’ll do an exercise in English vowel awareness. For each sound, think of two more words that contain it.
(Note: for multi-syllabic words – the relevant vowels for rhyming are always the vowels of the stressed syllables).
/i/we |
/ɪ/chick |
hate |
/ɛ/bed |
/æ/mad |
/ʌ/plus |
/ɚ/fur |
/ɝ/hair |
Here are a few more vowel sets:
/u/truth |
/ʊ/good |
/ɔ/saw |
/ɑ/hot |
/oɪ/boy |
/oʊ/no |
/aʊ/how |
/ai/sigh |
That wraps up this lesson. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s lesson on Consonants…
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