Phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Full monophthongs
LS
RP GA
TRAP
æ
BATH
ɑː
æ
PALM
ɑ
LOT
ɒ
CLOTH
ɔ
, 
ɑ
THOUGHT
ɔː
KIT
ɪ
DRESS
e
ɛ
STRUT
ʌ
FOOT
ʊ
Potential 
diphthongs
[42]
LS
RP GA
FACE
eɪ
GOAT
əʊ oʊ
FLEECE
iː
i
GOOSE
uː u
Full diphthongs
LS
RP GA
PRICE
aɪ
CHOICE
ɔɪ
MOUTH
aʊ
Vowels before historical /r/
LS
RP
GA
NURSE
ɜː
ɜr
START
ɑː
ɑr
NORTH
ɔː
ɔr
FORCE
ɔr, oʊr
NEAR
ɪə
ɪr
SQUARE
ɛː
ɛr
CURE
ʊə, 
ɔː
ʊr
Reduced vowels
LS
RP GA
COMMA
ə
ə
LETTER
ər
HAPPY
i
For a table that shows the pronunciations of these vowels in a wider range of English
dialects, see 
IPA chart for English dialects
.
The following tables show the vowel phonemes of three standard varieties of English. The
notation system used here for Received Pronunciation (RP) is fairly standard; the others less
so. The feature descriptions given here (front, close, etc.) are abstracted somewhat; the
actual pronunciations of these vowels are somewhat more accurately conveyed by the 
IPA
symbols used (see 
Vowel
 for a chart indicating the meanings of these symbols; though note
also the points listed below the following tables).

---

Received Pronunciation
[43][44]
Front
Central
Back
short long short long short long
Close
ɪ
iː
ʊ
uː
[a]
ɔː
[a]
Mid
e
ɛː
ə
ɜː
ɒ
[a]
Open
æ
ʌ
[a]
ɑː
Diphthongs
eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ əʊ ɪə ʊə
Triphthongs
(eɪə aɪə ɔɪə aʊə əʊə)
General American
Front
Central
Back
lax tense lax tense lax tense
Close
ɪ
i
ʊ
u
Mid
ɛ eɪ
[b]
ə
(
ɜ
)
[c]
oʊ
[b]
Open
æ
ʌ
[c]
ɑ
(
ɔ
)
[d]
Diphthongs
aɪ ɔɪ aʊ
General Australian
Front
Central
Back
short long short long short long
Close
ɪ
iː
ʉː
[a]
ʊ
oː
[a]
Mid
e
eː
ə
ɜː
ɔ
[a]
Open
æ
æː a
[a]
aː
Diphthongs
æɪ ɑɪ oɪ æɔ əʉ ɪə (ʊə)
[e]
a. The modern RP vowels /uː/, /ɔː/, /ɒ/ and /ʌ/ are very similar to the corresponding Australian
phonemes /ʉː/, /oː/, /ɔ/ and /a/. The difference between them lies mostly in transcription (the way
they are transcribed in RP is more conservative).
b. Although the notation /eɪ oʊ/ are used for the vowels of 
FACE
 and 
GOAT
 respectively in General
American, they are analysed as phonemic monophthongs and frequently transcribed as /e o/ in the
literature.
c. General American does not have the opposition between /ɜr/ and /ər/; therefore, the vowels in further
/ˈfɜrðər/ are typically realized with the same segmental quality as [ˈfɚðɚ].
[45]
 This also makes the
words forward /ˈfɔrwərd/ and foreword /ˈfɔrwɜrd/ 
homophonous
 as [ˈfɔɹwɚd].
[45]
 Therefore, /ɜ/ is not
a true phoneme in General American but merely a different notation of /ə/ preserved for when this
phoneme precedes /r/ and is stressed—a convention adopted in literature to facilitate comparisons
with other accents.
[46]
 What is historically /ʌr/, as in hurry, is also pronounced [ɚ] (see 
hurry–furry
merger
), so /ʌ/, /ɜ/ and /ə/ are all 
neutralized
 before /r/.
[46]
d. Many North American speakers do not distinguish /ɔ/ from /ɑ/ and merge them into /ɑ/, except
before /r/ (see 
cot–caught merger
).
e. The vowel /ʊə/ is often omitted from descriptions of Australian, as for most speakers it has split into
the long monophthong /oː/ (e.g. poor, sure) or the sequence /ʉːə/ (e.g. cure, lure).
[47]

---

The differences between these tables can be explained as follows:
General American lacks a phoneme corresponding to RP /ɒ/ (
LOT
, 
CLOTH
), instead using /
ɑ/ in the 
LOT
words and generally /ɔ/ in the 
CLOTH
words. In a few North American accents,
namely in 
Eastern New England
(
Boston
), 
Western Pennsylvania
 (
Pittsburgh
), and to some
degree in 
Pacific Northwest
 (
Seattle
, 
Portland
) and Eastern 
Canadian English
, 
LOT
words do
not have the vowel of 
PALM
(the 
father–bother merger
has not occurred) but instead merge
with 
CLOTH/THOUGHT
.
[48][49][50][51]
Although the notation /ʌ/ is used for the vowel of 
STRUT
in RP and General American, the
actual pronunciation is closer to a 
near-open central vowel
[ɐ]. The symbol ⟨ʌ⟩ continues to
be used for reasons of tradition (it was historically a back vowel) and because it is still
back in other varieties.
[52]
RP transcriptions use ⟨e⟩ rather than ⟨ɛ⟩ largely for convenience and historical tradition; it
does not necessarily represent a different sound from the General American phoneme,
although the RP vowel may be described as somewhat less open than the American
one.
[53]
The different notations used for the vowel of 
GOAT
in RP and General American (/əʊ/ and
/oʊ/) reflect a difference in the most common phonetic realizations of that vowel.
The triphthongs given in the RP table are usually regarded as sequences of two phonemes
(a diphthong plus /ə/); however, in RP, these sequences frequently undergo 
smoothing
into
single diphthongs or even monophthongs.
The different notations used here for some of the Australian vowels reflect the phonetic
realization of those vowels in Australian: a central [
ʉː
] rather than [
uː
] in 
GOOSE
, a more
closed [
e
] rather than [
ɛ
] in 
DRESS
, a close-mid [
oː
] rather than traditional RP's [
ɔː
] in
THOUGHT
, an open-mid [
ɔ
] rather than traditional RP's [
ɒ
] in 
LOT
, an opener [
a
] rather than
somewhat closer [
ʌ
] in 
STRUT
, a central [
aː
] rather a back [
ɑː
] in 
CALM
and 
START
, and
somewhat different pronunciations of most of the diphthongs. Note that central [
ʉː
] in
GOOSE
, close-mid [
oː
] in 
THOUGHT
, open-mid [
ɔ
] in 
LOT
and near-open [
ɐ
] in 
STRUT
are
standard realizations in modern RP and the difference between modern RP and Australian
English in these vowels lies almost only in transcription rather than pronunciation.
[54][43][55]
Both Australian /eː/ and RP /ɛː/ are long monophthongs, the difference between them
being in tongue height: Australian /eː/ is close-mid [
eː
], whereas the corresponding RP
vowel is open-mid [
ɛː
].
[56][55]
Australian has the 
bad–lad split
, with distinctive short and long variants in various words of
the 
TRAP
set: a long phoneme /æː/ in words like bad contrasts with a short /æ/ in words
like lad. (A similar split is found in the accents of some speakers in southern England.)

---

Other points to be noted are these:
The vowel /æ/ is coming to be pronounced more open (approaching [a]) by many modern
RP speakers. In American speech, however, there is a tendency for it to become more
closed, tenser and even diphthongized (to something like [eə]), particularly in certain
environments, such as before a 
nasal consonant
.
[57]
Some American accents, for example
those of 
New York City
, 
Philadelphia
 and 
Baltimore
, make a marginal phonemic distinction
between /æ/ and /eə/, although the two occur largely in mutually exclusive environments.
See 
/æ/ raising
.
A significant number of words (the 
BATH
group) have /æ/ in General American, but /ɑː/ in
RP. The pronunciation varies between /æ/ and /aː/ in Australia, with speakers from 
South
Australia
 using /aː/ more extensively than speakers from other regions.
In General American and Canadian (which are 
rhotic accents
, where /r/ is pronounced in
positions where it does not precede a vowel), many of the vowels can be 
r-colored
by way
of realization of a following /r/. This is often transcribed phonetically using a vowel symbol
with an added retroflexion 
diacritic
[ ˞ ]; thus the symbol [ɚ] has been created for an r-
colored 
schwa
(sometimes called schwar) as in 
LETTER
, and the vowel of 
START
can be
modified to make [ɑ˞] so that the word start may be transcribed [stɑ˞t]. Alternatively, the
START
sequence might be written [stɑɚt] to indicate an r-colored offglide. The vowel of
NURSE
is generally always r-colored in these dialects, and this can be written [ɚ] (or as a
syllabic [ɹ̩]).
In modern RP and other dialects, many words from the 
CURE
group are coming to be
pronounced by an increasing number of speakers with the 
NORTH
vowel (so sure is often
pronounced like shore).
[58]
The vowels of 
FLEECE
and 
GOOSE
are commonly pronounced as narrow diphthongs,
approaching [ɪi] and [ʊu], in RP. Near-RP speakers may have particularly marked
diphthongization of the type [əi] and [əu ~ əʉ], respectively. In General American, the
pronunciation varies between a monophthong and a diphthong.
[42]