20 Vowel Sounds In English with Examples (+Audio Pronunciation)

Welcome to this FREE online lesson on vowel sounds in English.

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Do you prefer watching the FULL video lesson instead? Click on the PLAY button below. Otherwise, keep scrolling.

“Sounds” are different from alphabets. There are 26 alphabets [5 vowels + 21 consonants] but there are 44 sounds in English.

How many vowel sounds are there in English?

Out of the 44 sounds in English Language, 24 are CONSONANT SOUNDS. Which means the remaining 20 are vowel sounds.

So there are 20 VOWEL SOUNDS in English Language which are easily divided into 2 major parts below.

MONOTHONG means “one sound”.

They are also called “Pure Vowel Sounds” because out of them are all other vowel sounds formed.

There are twelve (12) monothongs or pure vowel sounds in English and further divided into two.

There are seven (7) short monothongs which are called “short” because their pronunciation is short and sharp.

Short vowel sounds do NOT have colon (:) after them.

Click on any of them below to see the full lesson with their pronunciation, word examples and practice questions.

There are five (5) long monothongs which are called “long” because their pronunciation is a bit stretched and relaxed.

You can always identify long vowel sounds by the colon (:) after them.

Click on any of them below to see the full lesson with their pronunciation, word examples and practice questions.

HAPPY LEARNING.

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