English Phonology

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English Phonology and Pronunciation

The importance of pronunciation

In natural speech, sounds in informal speech patterns of English are often difficult to distinguish. It is difficult for non-native speakers to understand sentences when being spoken quickly as it sounds as though each sound is running into the next. It takes good listening practice to be able to uncover the different sounds that make up individual words.

It is important for non-native speakers to try to incorporate a good accent into their English learning in order to make their own speech sound more natural. If an accent is not natural sounding and stress patterns are not correct, it can be very difficult for a native English speaker to understand the non-native speaker, even if grammar and vocabulary is correct.

Native speakers of English pronounce words without thinking about it, but non-native English speakers need to learn to recognise the speech patterns used by native speakers and to use them themselves if they are to be understood.

Some areas of England have strong regional dialects and accents which can be difficult for non-native English speakers (and sometimes native English speakers!) to understand. For examples of Cockney Rhyming Slang from the East End of London click here.

Syllables and Stresses

All English words are pronounced in a certain way, with the stress coming on different syllables. If you put the stress in the wrong place, it can change the sense of the word completely. Click on the button below to read all about syllables and stresses in English.

Spelling to sound correspondences

‘Lax’, ‘Tense’, ‘Heavy’ and ‘Tense-R’ vowels

There are twenty main orthographic vowels of stressed syllables which some linguists have grouped into four main categories: 'Lax', 'Tense', 'Heavy' and Tense-R'.

Tense and lax vowels

Tense vowels are distinguished from lax vowels by adding a silent 'e' at the end of the word. So, the letter 'a' in the word 'mat' is lax (a hard sound), but when the letter 'e' is added to the end of the word it becomes the word 'mate' with the letter 'a' now changing to become tense.

Heavy and tense r-vowels

Similarly, heavy and tense-r vowels are patterned together. This means the letters 'ar' in the word 'bar' are heavy. But if we add an ‘e’ to the word, it becomes 'bare' and the vowel 'a' is now tense.

The letter ‘u’

The letter ‘u’ represents two different vowel patterns. The first ‘u’ sound is the word ‘cup’ and the second in he word ‘blue’.

Diagraphs

Another way of indicating tense and tense-r vowels is by the addition of another orthographic vowel forming a digraph (two letters together). The first vowel here is usually the main vowel while the second vowel is the ‘marking’ vowel which determines if the sound is lax or tense. For example, the word ‘pan’ has a lax ‘a’, creating a hard ‘a’ sound. But if we add the letter ‘i’ after the ‘a’ to create the digraph ‘ai’, the word changes to ‘pain’ and the ‘a’ is now tense. In this example, the ‘i’ changed the sound the ‘a’ from lax to tense, thus changing ‘pan’ to ‘pain’: a new word and a new pronunciation of the letter ‘a’.

Homophones

We can also have words that are spelled differently but which are pronounced exactly the same. For example:

	pale and pail
	tale and tail
	plane and plain
	sale and sail
	bale and bail

All of these words use the silent ‘e’ for the first word and the diagraph for the second. This use of the silent ‘e’ and the diagraph distinguishes between words that would otherwise be homonymous.

Here are some more examples of homophones:

bear / bare

bee / be

cell / sell

dear / deer

die / dye

draft / draught

him / hymn

main / mane

knight / night

morning / mourning

not / knot

oar / or

pane / pain

peace / piece

red / read

right / write

root / route

see / sea

sew /so

side / sighed

sort / sought

sun / son

sweet / suite

to / too / two

toe / tow

wear / where

The above examples assume British English pronunciation, although regional pronunciations may vary.

‘Ough’ words

There are many ways to pronounce ‘ough’ in English. The words ‘cough’, ‘tough’ and ‘though’ all have different pronunciations and there are many others. Click here to read more about ‘ough’ words in the English Orthography section.

Natural speech

The way in which native speakers pronounce words in formal settings can often sound different in relaxed conversations with other native speakers. Words can sound as though they merge together in rapid speech and can be almost indeterminable to the non-native ear, especially if speakers have heavy accents or are not speaking 'good' English.

For example, the use of the suffix ‘n’t’ creates a negation of the verb and is very common in rapid speech. The speech sound of this ‘nt’ sound tagged onto the end of a word allows the speaker to speak more quickly and smoothly. This is a good strategy to try as a non-native English speaker to make your speech sound more natural.

Please see the fixed phrases and idioms sections to read more about natural speech and typical English phrases.