Introduction to American English Long Vowels

Long vowel key words
long a	cake	c - a - ke
long e	keep	k - ee - p
long i	bike	b - i - ke
long o	home	h - o - me
long u	cute	c - u - te

What is a long vowel sound?

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. Long vowels are generally the easiest vowels for non-native English speakers to distinguish and pronounce correctly.

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Introduction to two-sound vowels

2-sound long vowels
long a	ends in a brief y sound
long i	ends in a brief y sound
long o	ends in a brief w sound
long u	begins with a brief y sound

A two-sound vowel is a vowel sound that includes a y sound or a w sound in the pronunciation. Often, the y sound or w sound is only a minor part of the sound, but must be included for the sound to be pronounced fully. Two-sound vowels are known linguistically as diphthongs (pronounced as dip-thong or dif-thong).

In North American English, the long a, long i, long o, and long u are two-sound vowels.

Note that the long u is essentially the y sound plus the oo sound and is the only vowel sound that will be preceded by the article a rather than an. Presuming the long u to be a two-sound vowel helps to distinguish it from the oo sound for learning purposes.

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The Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) pattern

VCe pattern examples
long a	late
long e	delete
long i	kite
long o	note
long u	cute

A spelling pattern that is true for all long vowel sounds is the Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) pattern. The VCe pattern states that when a single vowel is followed by a single consonant, then the letter e, the first vowel is pronounced as a long vowel sound and the letter e is silent.

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Pronuncian Lessons

  

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k sound /k/

Letter x Pronunciation: k+s or g+z

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