MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH phonetics
Vowel Sounds (British)
Phonetic Link

https://multimedia-english.com/phonetics/british-vowels

 
 

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 x Barbara x Photograph x a house x the sun x 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.

This is a phonetic sheet from Multimedia-English www.multimedia-english.com