Contents: Introduction I. Special Phonetic Features in the English Language

Chart list of vowel

Front	Front	Central	Back
High Mid Low	I I E Ʒ æ	Ә ᴧ a	U ʊ o ɔ α

The stability of Articulation
Monophthongs
Monophthongs are the single vowel in the articulation. They are [ i, e, æ, α.ɔ, ʊ, Ʒ, u, ᴧ, ə, ɒ]
Diphthongs
Diphthongs are vowel that are produced by a combination of a another vowel these sounds are, [eɪ, aɪ ɔɪ, aʊ, əʊ, ɪə,eə, uə ].
Diphthongs
Trip thongs are vowels made by a combination of two other vowels. These sounds are produced by gliding from a vowel to another. Diphthongs are composed by the closing diphthongs with ə as ending parts. There is composition of diphthongs as follow:
a) eɪ + ə =eɪə
b) aɪ + ə = aɪə
c) ɔɪ + ə = ɔɪә
d) əʊ + ə = əʊə
e) aʊ + ə = aʊə

Monophthongs	i: u,: ɔː	ɪ, e, æ, ᴧ, ʊ, ɒ, α, Ʒ, ɔ, ɔ
Diphthongs	aɪ, eɪ, ɔɪ, əʊ, ɪə, eə, ʊə
Triphthongs	aɪə, aʊə

The following is the phonetic symbols of English consonants with example is words

I	See	/siː/
I	Hit	/hɪt/
E	Ten	/ten/
Æ	Happy	/ˈhæp.i/
Α	Sample	/sɑːm.pl/
ɒ	Got	/gɒt/
ɔ	War	/wɔː r /
ʊ	Good	/gʊd/
u:	Zoo	/zuː/
ᴧ	Lusty	/ˈlʌs.ti/
Ә	about	/əˈbaʊt/
eɪ	grade	/greɪd/
əʊ	Now	/naʊ/
oʊ	Go	/goʊ/
aɪ	Spain	/speɪn/
ɔɪ	Boy	/bɔɪ/
aʊ	Gown	/grəʊn/
ɪə	Near	/nɪə r /
Eə	Cairn	/keən/
ʊə	Pure	/pjʊr/

Datum 1. The sound vowel /ᴧ/

The sound /ᴧ/ is an open central vowel³. The sound /ᴧ/ produce involving the central part of the tongue. However the sound in vowel / ᴧ/ is no fully open vowel. The central part of tongue is a little raised near with the area of the quality of the open middle of vowel sound.

Position in the word	Example	Oxford dictionary	Students pronunciation
Initial	But	/bʌt/	/Bat/
Initial	Done	/dʌn/	/dan/
Initial	Understand	/ʌn.dəˈstænd /	/ʌn.deˈstend/
Medial	Make up	/meɪk.ʌp /	/Mek ap/

The pronounce of the students are (bʌt) and (meɪk.ʌp) changed in the pronounced “bat” and “mek ap”, the sound /ʌ/ with /a/. Actually the sound /ᴧ/ needs to tongue to be a little raised near with the quality of central middle of the vowel sound. The students did not pronounce the lips position in a neutral one. This following the phonemic opposition and phonetic features.

The sound of /aʊ/
This sound is closing diphthong. In this case is start with open vowel /a/ then move to close vowel. This sound diphthong moves to /aʊ/ monophthongs /ɒ/. This table following the incorrect /ɒ/ sound monopthtong moves to diphthong /aʊ/

Position in the word	Example	Oxford dictionary	Students pronunciation
Initial	Out	/aʊt/	/ɒt/

The incorrect pronounce of English student /aʊ/ vowel with /ɒ/ vowel monophthong. This sound /aʊ/ is diphthong happened in one position initial “about “and “out” the initial of diphthong in word /aʊ/ word into the sound /ɒ/. The students did not pronounce the area diphthongs but the sound omit sound (ʊ) /ɒt/ being The replacement of the sound /aʊ/ diphthong, students pronounce being Monophthong⁴. The diphthong sound is glide to the front close position.

1.2 Consonants: General theories and views
All the letters in the alphabet are either consonants or vowels. A consonant is a speech sound in which the air is at least partly blocked, and any letter which represents this. Consonants may come singly (by themselves) or in clusters (two or more together), but must be connected to a vowel to form a syllable.
Notice that the consonant and vowel notation does not match the letters of English spelling in a one-to-one relationship, but rather individual sounds. Consonants have friction when they are spoken, mostly using the position of the tongue against the lips, teeth and roof of the mouth. b and p are plosives, using the lips to produce a tiny sharp sound. Phonetics texts give more details, with diagrams. Consonants may be voiced or unvoiced. The th in the is voiced, but in breath is not.
There are 21 consonant letters in English, for 24 consonant sounds in most English accents. Because of the history of the English language, there is no neat one-to-one relationship between letter and sound. th and ch each stand for a single sound, and x in fox stands for two sounds. All these letters are consonants: B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, (sometimes Y), and Z. "Y" is often used as a consonant, but it is sometimes used as a vowel. For example, in the word yellow, y is a consonant. But in the word happy, y is a vowel.
The rest of the letters of the alphabet are called vowels. Vowels are underdone, for there are about 20 vowel sounds in most English accents. The vowels are: A, E, I, O, U (and sometimes Y)
A consonant is a speech sound that's not a vowel. The sound of a consonant is produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the airstream by a constriction of the speech organs⁵. In writing, a consonant is any letter of the alphabet except A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. The 24 consonant sounds in English, are some voiced (made by a vibration of the vocal cords) and some voiceless (no vibration).
When spoken vowels have no obstruction in the mouth, as opposed to consonants, which do. In his book "Letter Perfect," the author David Sacks described the difference between speaking consonants and vowels this way: "Whereas vowels are pronounced from the vocal cords with minimal shaping of expelled breath, consonant sounds are created through obstruction or channelling of the breath by the lips, teeth, tongue, throat, or nasal passage.... Some consonants, like B, involve the vocal cords; others don't. Some, like R or W, flow the breath in a way that steers them relatively close to being vowels."
When consonants and vowels are put together, they form syllables, which are the basic units of pronunciation⁶. Syllables, in turn, are the foundation of words in English grammar. Phonetically, however, consonants are much more variable. Consonants are sounds in which the air stream meets some obstacles in the mouth on its way up from the lungs, as we learned earlier. Most consonants are not as smooth sounding as vowels; they pop, hiss, snap, or hum
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the 1lips; [t], pronounced with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.
Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled "th" in "this" is a different consonant from the "th" sound in "thin". (In the IPA, they are transcribed [ð] and [θ], respectively.)
The word consonant comes from Latin oblique stem cōnsonant-, from cōnsonāns (littera) "sounding-together (letter)", a calque of Greek σύμφωνον sýmphōnon (plural sýmphōna).
Dionysius Thrax calls consonants sýmphōna "pronounced with" because they can only be pronounced with a vowel. [a] He divides them into two subcategories: hēmíphōna, semivowels ("half-pronounced"), which correspond to continuants, not semivowels,[b] and áphōna, mute or silent consonants ("unvoiced"), which correspond to stops, not voiceless consonants.[c]
This description does not apply to some human languages, such as the Salishan languages, in which stops sometimes occur without vowels (see Nuxálk), and the modern conception of consonant does not require co-occurrence with vowels.
The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a consonant sound. The 21 consonant letters in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y. The letter Y stands for the consonant /j/ in yoke, the vowel /ɪ/ in myth, the vowel /i/ in funny, and the diphthong /aɪ/ in my. W always represents a consonant except in combination with a vowel letter, as in growth, raw, and how, and in a few loanwords from Welsh, like crwth or cwm. In some other languages, such as Finnish, you only represent a vowel sound.
Consonants and vowels correspond to distinct parts of a syllable: The most sonorous part of the syllable (that is, the part that's easiest to sing), called the syllabic peak or nucleus, is typically a vowel, while the less sonorous margins (called the onset and coda) are typically consonants. Such syllables may be abbreviated CV, V, and CVC, where C stands for consonant and V stands for vowel. This can be argued to be the only pattern found in most of the world's languages, and perhaps the primary pattern in all of them. However, the distinction between consonant and vowel is not always clear cut: there are syllabic consonants and non-syllabic vowels in many of the world's languages.
One blurry area is in segments variously called semivowels, semi consonants, or glides⁷. On one side, there are vowel-like segments that are not in themselves syllabic, but form diphthongs as part of the syllable nucleus, as the i in English boil [ˈb ɪ l]. On the other, there are approximants that behave like consonants in forming onsets, but are articulated very much like vowels, as the y in English yes [ˈjɛs]. Some phonologists model these as both being the underlying vowel i , so that the English word bit would phonemically be bit , beet would be bii t , and yield would be phonemically i ii ld . Likewise, foot would be fut, food would be fuu d , wood would be u ud , and wooed would be u uu d . However, there is a (perhaps allophonic) difference in articulation between these segments, with the [j] in [ˈjɛs] yes and [ˈjiʲld] yield and the [w] of [ˈwuʷd] wooed having more constriction and a more definite place of articulation than the [ɪ] in [ˈb ɪ l] boil or [ˈbɪt] bit or the [ʊ] of [ˈfʊt] foot.
The importance of consonants in English
All languages have both vowels and consonants, and the difference between them is the degree of constriction of the air from the lungs that travels up the trachea into the oral or nasal cavity. Vowels are produced when the air is gently shaped by the position of the lips, tongue, or soft palate; consonants are produced when one anatomical structure (lips, tongue, teeth, hard and soft palates, pharynx, larynx, glottis, etc.) makes some sort of contact with another and thus impedes the flow of air. Because the structures involved in consonants are so great in number, more consonants than vowels are possible, providing multiple combinations of vowels and consonants for the purpose of producing spoken words. Over 70 types of sounds are used for human speech, though probably no languages use all of them.
Consonant sounds make speech clear, crisp and intelligible, meaning they make your speech easier to understand. Consonants are easier to learn than vowels. There is usually only one way to pronounce each consonant sound. Once you learn to position your teeth, tongue and lips for a consonant sound, you can insert it into any word and be fairly accurate. Vowels, on the other hand, are more complicated. In English there is not a single standard for pronouncing each vowel. The ―a‖ letter can be pronounced as many as 6 different ways. That makes learning vowel pronunciation very challenging
Vowels can also vary in English pronunciation and still be acceptable. Each region of the US pronounces the vowels a little differently. So, a slight mispronunciation of a vowel from non-natives is not much of a problem. Our ears are willing to adjust to hearing the ―i‖ in ‗him‖ mispronounced as an ―e‖ like ‗heem.‖ While it is not correct Standard American pronunciation, it does not bother us much.
For all these reasons, the most valuable use of your practice time for reducing an accent is to focus on pronouncing consonant sounds.
Consonants and vowels are two different qualities of sounds that are found almost in all languages of the world.
Consonants are defined as the sounds articulated by temporary obstruction in the air stream which passes through the mouth. The obstruction made by the articulators may be `total‘, `intermittent‘, `partial‘, or may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction. In the articulation of consonants almost all articualtors are involved. Vowels on the other hand are the sounds that are produced without any obstruction in the air passage. Among all articulators, only the tongue is involved in their production<sup>8</sup>. All vowel sounds are voiced and all of them are oral sounds as during the production of them the soft palate is raised and hence the nasal cavity is completely blocked.
Another important distinction is, that consonants often appear as the marginal elements in syllables. They seldom form the nucleus, or centre, of the syllable except in some cases. Usually there will be a vowel at the center or nucleus of a syllable. You will learn more about this in the rubric on Syllables and Syllable Structure
Difference between consonants and vowels
When it comes to describing and classifying consonants and vowels show apparent distinction. Consonants are identified or classified in terms of voicing, place of articulation, and manner of articulation. Since there is no obstruction of the airstream in the production of vowel sounds, and since all vowel sounds are voiced and oral, we cannot describe vowels in terms of their place of articulation, but are left with the manner, in which they are produced.
Consonants are defined as the sounds articulated by temporary obstruction in the air stream which passes through the mouth. The obstruction made by the articulators may be `total', `intermittent', `partial', or may merely constitute a narrowing sufficient to cause friction. In the articulation of consonants almost all articualtors are involved. Especially the position of the soft palate causes the division of consonants into `oral consonants' and `nasal consonants'. when the soft palate is raised, `oral consonants' are produced; the soft palate is lowered, `nasal consonants' are produced. In English /m/, /n/, and / /are nasal consonants and rest of all are oral consonants. The function of vocal cords also causes the division of consonants as `voiceless' and `voiced'. When vocal cords are kept apart, voiceless consonants as /p, t, k, c, f, 0, s, s, h/ are produced whereas their vibrations produce voiced consonants as /b, d, g, j, v, ,z, z/. But vowels are the sounds that are produced with an approximation without any obstruction in the air passage. Among all articulators, only tongue is prominent in their production. All vowel sounds are voiced and all of them are `oral' as during the production of them the soft palate is raised and hence the nasal cavity is completely
blocked. The examples of the vowels are /i, I, e, , a , , , u, U, , o, /. Consonants in phonetics are referred to as `contoids' which often appear as the marginal elements in the `syllable'. They seldom form nucleus of the syllable except some case. The consonants `n' and `l' in the second syllable of the words `button' and `apple' form nucleus. But vowels referred to as `vocoids' in phonetics always form the nucleus of the syllable as in `bill', `pill', `mill', `heat', etc. Even in their manner of classification, consonants and vowels show apparent distinction. Consonants are identified or classified in terms of `voicing', `place of articulation', and `manner of articulation', whereas vowels in terms of the `height of tongue', `part of tongue', which is raised or lowered, and `lip rounding'. After all consonants are auditory impressions and they are twenty-five in number whereas vowels are articulatory impressions and are only twelve in number.
Articulatory differences between consonants and vowels:
Physiological Distinction
In general, consonants can be said to have a greater degree of constriction than vowels. This is obviously the case for oral and nasal stops, fricatives and affricates. The case for approximants is not so clear-cut as the semi-vowels /j/ and /w/ are very often indistinguishable from vowels in terms of their constriction.
Acoustic Distinction
In general, consonants can be said to be less prominent than vowels. This is usually manifested by vowels being more intense than the consonants that surround them. Sometimes, certain consonants can have a greater total intensity than adjacent vowels but vowels are almost always more intense at low frequencies than adjacent consonants.
Phonological Distinction
Syllables usually consist of a vowel surrounded of consonants. A single vowel forms the prominent nucleus of each syllable. There is only one peak of prominence per syllable and this is nearly always a vowel. The consonants form the less prominent valleys between the vowel peaks. This tidy picture is disturbed by the existence of syllabic consonants. Syllabic consonants form the nucleus of a syllable that does not contain a vowel. In English, syllabic consonants occur when an approximant or a nasal stop follows a homorganic (same place of articulation) oral stop (or occasionally a fricative) in words such as "bottle" /b tl or "button" /bʌtn/. The semi-vowels in English play the same phonological role as the other consonants even though they are vowel-like in many ways. The semi-vowels are found in syllable positions where stops, fricatives, etc. are found (eg. "pay", "may", and "say" versus "way").
All sounds depend on manipulation of an air stream either leaving or entering the body. Different sounds are produced by the shape and size of the chamber the air is passing through (mouth and nose) and whether there is any intrusion into the air stream⁹.
Vowels include no or little intrusion into the air stream, their acoustics are determined entirely by the size and shape of the chamber(s) of resonance and the action/inaction of the vocal cords. (It must be noted at this point that the position of the vocal cords in the larynx can also have an effect on vowel sounds. If the cords are relaxed, the air passes freely through, and there is no effect on sound. If, on the other hand, the cords are tense, the passing air causes them to vibrate, and that does affect the sound. This is the only ―intrusion‖ into the air stream which is present in the articulation of a vowel.) The size and shape of the chamber can be adjusted by the position of the tongue and the lips: some vowel sounds are produced by an elevated tongue (and part of the tongue elevated can be significant also, defining the difference between ―front,‖ ‗mid,‖ and ―back‖ vowels), while others are produced with the tongue at varying lower levels, or with the root of the tongue advanced or retracted. The shape of the aperture at exit (the lips) also affects the sound made by the exiting air stream. If part or all of the air stream is shunted into the nasal cavity and out of the nostrils, the sound is also altered as resonance occurs in the sinuses.
Consonants, by comparison, owe almost all of their sound to some sort of obstruction or channeling of the passing air. The air can be stopped entirely by closing the lips or using the tongue to block and stop the progress of the air or by causing it to vibrate. Or the moving air may be channelized by changing the shape of the tongue, so that it flows along a narrow channel. The vocal chords may also participate in the production of a consonant sound.
Now, the easiest way to get your friend to comprehend the basic difference between vowels and consonants is to contrast the most extreme of each of these.
Have him her articulate ―ah,‖ as a doctor does when he wants to look at the far back of the throat. This position is the most open one possible, the chamber is maximally open for the articulation of the sound ―ah.‖ This is how we articulate the vowel
a.Now ask him /her to pronounce a d, a t, or an n. Ask him to visualize where the tongue is—it will be either pressed against the back of the front teeth, or against the gum below the front teeth. These sounds are called ―stops‖ because the air stream is completely stopped and then released. You could work through many other consonant sounds, e.g. p, b, m, demonstrating again the extreme manipulation of the air stream.
Basically, a vowel is a sound that is made with the mouth and throat not closing at any point. In contrast, a consonant is a sound that is made with the air stopping once or more during the vocalization. That means that at some point, the sound is stopped by your teeth, tongue, lips, or constriction of the vocal cords.
The difference explains why ―y‖ is only ―sometimes‖ a vowel. Depending on which word ―y‖ is being used in, it can represent different sounds. In words like
―myth‖ or ―hymn,‖ the letter takes on a sound like a short ―i‖ and the mouth and throat don‘t close when the sound is made. However, in words like ―beyond,‖ it acts as a bridge between the ―e‖ and the ―o,‖ and there is some partial closure, making ―y‖ a consonant.
Another forgotten letter that has the same qualities as ―y‖ is ―w.‖ While ―w‖ is almost always a consonant, it is considered a vowel at the end of words like ―wow‖ or
―how.‖ You can see for yourself when saying these words that your mouth doesn‘t fully close while pronouncing the letter.
There are, of course, other differences between vowels and consonants. For instance, in English you can have vowels that are entire words, such as ―a‖ or ―I.‖ You won‘t see a consonant that is a word by itself, however. Words in English need 5vowels to break up the sounds that consonants make. So, while every word has to have a vowel, not every word has to have a consonant.
There are strings of consonants that are sometimes written like full words, like
―hmm.‖ However, these are just sounds rather than actual words. You will also find that most words in English won‘t have more than three consonants in a row, because otherwise it gets to be too difficult for English-speakers to say it. There are exceptions, of course—take the word ―strengths‖ for example, which has a string of five consonants (though it only has three consonant sounds in a row: ng, th, and s). In other languages, like Polish, long strings of consonants are more common.
Of course, there are also sounds made by consonants that can be repeated over and over without a vowel sound. If you were to repeat ―z‖ over and over, like the sound of a buzzing bee, you would find that your mouth remains slightly open and the sound is seemingly unobstructed—so shouldn‘t it fall under the ―vowel‖ category?
The letter ―z,‖ along with the letter ―s,‖ actually fall under a subcategory of consonants called ―fricatives.‖ Fricatives are sounds you make by pushing air through a small gap in your teeth.
As you can see, the differences between vowels and consonants are more complex than you were probably taught in elementary school. It‘s less about the letters and more about how your mouth moves when you‘re saying them.