English Vowel Sounds Chart

Updated 8 Jan 2013

Although there are only 5 vowel letters in English, there are actually 15 unique vowel sounds. This chart shows all those vowel sounds according to their standard North American pronunciation.

	North American Dictionary Symbol	International Phonetic Alphabet	Example word with main spelling	Example word(s) with alternate spellings
Short a	a	æ	hat
Long a	ā	ei	hate	rain, say, steak, they, eight, vein, straight
Short e	e	ɛ	pet	bread, said
Long e	ē	i:	Pete	meet, meat, chief, he, key, sunny
Short i	i	ɪ	kit	myth
Long i	ī	ɑi	kite	lied, wild, night, height, fly
Short o	o	ɑ	hop	fraud, law, talk, father, fought, taught
Long o	ō	ou	hope	toe, boat, most, grow, though, soul
Short u	u	u	cut	touch, some, about
Long u	ū	ɪu:	cute	cue, pupil, few
Short oo	oo	ʊ	book	would, bush
Long oo	ōō	u:	boot	blue, new, suit, flute, soup, shoe, do, through
oy	oy	oi	boy	boil
ow	ow	ɑu	cow	out, drought
ir	ir	ɹ	bird	turn, work, syrup, dollar, faster, learn

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