BRITISH VOWELS

Move your mouse over the phonetic symbols and examples to listen to the pronunciation. Click on the video links to watch the explanations.

SYMBOL	NAME	EXAMPLES	VIDEOS	Usual Spelling
	tea	seat bean cheek sheep teen	TEA	ee / ea
	ship	sit bin chick lip tin	SHIP	i
	bell	set neck ten fell men	BELL	e
	cat	sat ban lack pan hat	CAT	a
	hut	cut bun luck much cup	HUT	u
	car	cart barn cast march part	CAR	ar
	sock	cot lock posh fox cod	SOCK	o
	fork	caught port forks cord born	FORK	or / au / aw
	cook	pull could put look foot	COOK	oo / (u)
	boot	fool Luke soon brute mood	BOOT	oo / (u)
	girl	bird turn perch shirt learn	GIRL	er / ir / ur
	schwa	Barbara Photograph a house the sun station	SCHWA	any vowel or vowel combination

Note about length for speakers whose language doesn't make a difference between short and long vowels:

In English, vowels may be short or long. The phonetic symbols followed by colon (:) are long vowels.

Short vowels are very short, and long vowels usually take more than double the time to pronounce. All the English vowels sound different, but if you pronounce them with a foreign accent some of them may be confused; respecting the short-long difference will help natives to understand you. If you practise reading using ®Motion Phonics make sure your motions are short or long to match the length of vowels, that will help you to master the time difference until it comes naturally to you.