Showing posts with label vowel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vowel. Show all posts

Monday, June 27, 2011

Vowels

The English language has a total of 15 vowels. In writing the vowels, I will use their IPA representation. They consist of the front vowels: i as in eat, week, and tree. I as in pin and invite. e as in eight, locate, and balletɛ as in extra and bet. æ as in at and glass. and a as in the British pronunciation of path. Our central vowels are: ʌ as in under and sun. ə as in asleep, balloon, and zebraɝ as in herd, earth, furɚ as in farmer and waterfall. Back vowels are: u as in drewʊ as in foot. o as in over, boat, helloɔ as in all, hall, jaw.  ɑ as in awkward, clock, and raw. There are three diphthongs which include:  ɑI as in aisle, mine, and tryɑʊ as in hour, mouth, and plow. and ɔI as in oil, spoil, and destroy.
In comparison, the Spanish (Mexico) language has 5 vowels. A, E, I, O, U. They are consistent in every word. They always have the same sound.
There is a reason that English is a difficult language to learn.  Not only do we have a plethora of vowels, but they are not consistent in how they are pronounced. For example, the word "bow" can be pronounced as  /bɑʊor /bo/. The 'ow' in this word can represent more than one vowel. So, when our children are struggling to learn this information, there is a viable reason that it is difficult.