Monophthong Vowel Sounds (1-13)

In this lesson we are going to learn the 13 English monophthongs – vowel sounds that are made with a single position of the mouth (tongue, jaw, lips).

Don’t worry if you cannot pronounce the sounds or if you don’t recognise the symbols at this stage. You can try them and see their mouth positions by tapping the symbols on the IPA chart below:

Front Vowels (1-5)

Let’s start with sounds 1 to 5, the FRONT VOWELS:

1. /iː/ NEED, BEAT, TEAM

2. /ɪ/ THIN, SIT, RICH

3. /ɛ/ WENT, BREAD, FRIEND

4. /ɛː/ CARE, THERE, BEAR

5. /a/ CAT, HAND, FAN

You can see that the tongue position for these vowels is towards the front of mouth:

Also notice that as we move through the sounds, our jaw gradually opens.

Centre Vowels (6-10)

Now we’ll pronounce the next group of sounds, the CENTRE VOWELS:

6. /uː/ FEW, BOOT, LOSE

7. /ə/ ALIVE, THE, TODAY

8. /əː/ THIRD, TURN, WORSE

9. /ʌ/ FUN, LOVE, MONEY

10. /ɑː/ GLASS, HALF, CAR

These are CENTRE vowel sounds because as you can see, the tongue is quite flat, filling the middle of the mouth:

Notice that /uː/ has rounded lips, all the other sounds we have encountered so far have unrounded lips. 

Back Vowels (6-10)

Now we are going to try the final group of monophthongs, the BACK VOWELS:

11. /ʊ/ PUT, LOOK, SHOULD

12. /ɔː/ TALK, LAW, PORT

13. /ɒ/ ROB, TOP, WATCH

All of these back vowel sounds are made with rounded lips and the tongue is pulling back:

Now we have tried the 13 monophthongs, let’s practise them: go to Monophthong Activities below.