Monophthongs and Diphthongs

Monophthongs and Diphthongs

The monophthongs are listed below with examples of words where they occur.

1. / i: / – beat, seat

2. / i / – bit, sit

3. / e / – bed , hen

4. /æ/ – cart, part

5. /a:/ – cart, part

6. / כ / – Pot, cork

7. /כ:/ – port, cork

8. /u / – put, foot

9. /u:/ – two, woo

10 /л/ – hut, cut

11. /3:/ – bird, herb

12. /ə/ akin, baker

Diphthongs: The diphthongs differ from the pure vowels (monophthongs) because their articulation involves a glide from one vowel quality to the other. There are eight diphthongs in English and their phonetic symbols indicate the initial and final vowels represented in the articulation.

Diagram showing the diphthongs in English.

The diphthongs are listed below with examples of words where they occur.

1. /ei/ – pay, again

2. / əu / – go, home

3. / αi/ – rice, kite

4. / au / – cow, house

5. / כi/ – toy, voice

6. / iə / – ear, here

7. / eə / – air, hair

8. / uə / – poor, tour

Now that you understand what a syllable is we can look at monophthongs and diphthongs. A monophthong is where there is one vowel sound in a syllable, and a diphthong is where there are two vowel sounds in a syllable.

Say the word ‘funny’ out-loud. As you can hear, in ‘funny’ we have two vowel sounds –

ʌ and i – divided into two syllables by the consonant sound n. So we can say that ‘funny’ contains two monophthongs: ʌ and i.

Now say the word ‘guy’. Here we have the same two vowel sounds but this time they are stuck together in one syllable, without any consonant dividing them. So we can say that ‘guy’ contains one diphthong: ʌi. To put it simply: a monophthong is a single vowel and a diphthong is a double vowel.

Let’s look at another example: the word ‘behind’. Here we have three vowel sounds: ə, ʌ and i. The ə is on its own, separated from the other two vowel sounds by the consonant sound h. However the ʌ and i are stuck together to make a double vowel, ʌi, which is the same diphthong in the word ‘guy’. So the word ‘behind’ has three basic vowel sounds divided into two syllables, the first of which contains a monophthong, ə, and the second of which contains a diphthong, ʌi: bəhʌind.

In English we also have a couple of triple vowels called triphthongs, such as in the word ‘fire’, which has three vowels ʌ, ɪ and ə stuck together in one syllable: fʌɪə.

At this point you might be feeling that this is getting quite complicated, but remember: all of the diphthongs and triphthongs are made from the monophthongs. For example, the diphthong ʌi, as in the word ‘guy’, is made from the two monophthongs ʌ and i. So, once you learn the monophthongs, the diphthongs and triphthongs are quite easy. Also, 4 of the monophthongs in English are simply shorter versions of other monophthongs. For example, we have a: (long, as in 'are') and ʌ (short, as in 'up'), ɛː (long, as in 'air') and ɛ (short, as in 'egg'). So, once you learn the long version, it’s easy to do the short version.

All the 24 vowel sounds are derived from only ten basic sounds. Every single word in English, regardless of its spelling, is pronounced using some combination of these ten sounds.