Phonetics

Studying English phonetics helps to learn the sounds of the letters. Thus, leading to know the correct pronunciation of letters and words.

The English alphabet contains 26 letters represented by 44 sounds between 20 vowels and 24 consonants. Each sound has a phonetic symbol. We will address them during the lesson.

There are three categories of phonetics:

1- Articulatory phonetics: concentrates on sound production.

2- Acoustic phonetics: concentrates on sound waves and their transmission.

3- Auditory phonetics: concentrates on receiving sounds.

Consonants

Sounds produced by stopping airflow from passing through the airway smoothly. Words can have one consonant or more, but it must be attached to a vowel to form a syllable. 

A syllable is the smaller unit of a word, and a word can consist of one or more syllables.

It can be one phonetic symbol or two to form one consonant.

Vowels

Sounds that are unrestricted within the air flow through the airways. We use six letters to refer to vowels in English, which are (A, E, I, O, U) and sometimes the letter Y.

Vowels consist of two main categories:

1- Monophthong 

2- Diphthong

Monophthongs

It means one vowel in a syllable, and they are called pure vowels. There are 12 monophthong vowels in the language, divided into:

1- Short monophthongs: are vowels pronounced without extended sounds.

2- Long monophthongs: are vowels with long pronunciation, and the symbol in phonetic spelling is written with a colon after it, for example (:i).

Examples: 

Diphthongs

It means two vowels are combined to give one sound in a syllable. It is a long vowel because it contains two letters.

Examples:

Notes: 

1- Phonetic spelling means using sounds in writing a word to know the exact pronunciation, and we can find it in dictionaries next to the meaning. 

2- Phonetic spelling of a word differs between American English and British English, because of the differences in pronunciation of most words, especially with vowels.

These are the main concepts of phonetics and the types of sounds and symbols in short. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can share them in the comments section below.