The Vowels Of American English Page 13
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15Sources of learner problems with vowels
New sounds: English has more vowel sounds than many other languages. In fact, the
average number of vowels in the languages of the world is five or six. English has more
than twice that number! Vowels that are found in English but not in the learner’s language
are often challenging since the learner’s tongue and lips need to get used to moving into
unfamiliar positions and new combinations of movements.
Differences between the phonemes of different languages: Some pairs of vowels that
are separate phonemes in English may be allophones of the same phoneme in other
languages. For example, /iy/ and /ɪ/ are separate phonemes in English, and we find many
minimal pairs such as sleep and slip or least and list. But these sounds are variations of a
single phoneme /i/ in Japanese, Spanish, Korean, and many other languages. Other pairs of
tense and lax vowels are also often confused in this way: /iy/ and /ɪ/, /ey/ and /ɛ/, /uw/
and /ᴜ/. Other similar vowels, such as /ɛ/ and /æ/ or /ʌ/ and /ɑ/, may also be heard as
variations of the same sound in many languages.
Glided vowels: English vowels that end with a /y/ or /w/ glide can also cause problems,
particularly /ey/ and /ow/. Many languages have vowels that are similar to these, but
without the final glide. Speakers of these languages may keep the vowel sound consistent
throughout the vowel instead of adding the final glide, leading to vowel sounds that may be
hard to recognize.
Vowels followed by /r/: Learners from some language backgrounds have particular
problem with vowels followed by /r/, especially in words like these:
stir and star
stir and store
•
curd and card
curd and cord
•
were and wore
word and ward
•
Reduced vowels: In English, many unstressed vowels are reduced to /ə/. In many
languages, this does not happen; vowels retain their “full” quality, whether they’re stressed
or unstressed, or spoken slowly or quickly. Speakers of these languages may pronounce
unstressed syllables in English with “full” vowels too, and this can make it hard for listeners
to understand which words are meant.
In conclusion, vowels are the “heart” of syllables. They’re slippery and sometimes harder to
describe and define than consonants, but both teachers and learners need to try to produce
them as accurately as possible in order to be understood easily.
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