Types of Sounds

English is a non phonetical language, which means that often the way that the word is spelled, is not the way that you pronounce it. The English alphabet has 26 letters, but there are more than 40 phonemes. A phoneme is the individual sound of a word. There are different sounds to vowel and consonants, and each sound is represented by symbols (see the list of symbols here). 

1) Sounds of Vowel

English has 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u). The letter y sometimes is considered a vowel e.g. by, baby, gym.

A vowel is classified as long [a] or short [A]:

a) Long vowel 

Normally, it is pronounced the way you pronounce the letter in the alphabet, e.g. a in paper, e in Chinese, i in find, o in no, u in June.

Usually, words with a vowel that follows another combination of consonant + vowel are long sounds, e.g. case, tape, brave.

A combination of two vowels (diphthongs) are long sounds, and usually we pronounce only the first letter, e.g. straight, treat, lie, boat, clue.

Another tip, if the vowel is followed by "ght", it's likely the vowel is long, e.g. right, tight, straight, thought.

b) Short vowel

Normally, the vowel sound is stretched, e.g. a in cat, e in red, i in sit, o in not, u in bus.

There is no short vowel at the end of the word, they must be followed by a consonant, e.g. dad, met, hint, drop, fun.

A double consonant usually indicates that the vowel before is short, but not at the word's beginning, e.g. app, sell, kill, Todd, gruff.


2) Consonant

Consonants can be voiced or voiceless:
When you are making a voiceless sound, the vocal cords do not vibrate. In contrast, when your vocal cords vibrate or produce a humming sound in the throat, you are making a voiced sound.