8 Unique Ways to Practice English Vowel Sounds

fluentu.com/blog/english/english-vowel-practice/

Yuliya Geikhman May 18, 2016

“How now, brown cow?”

Do you notice anything interesting about that silly question?

That’s right—all the words have the same “ow” sound.

Practicing that sentence is just one of many ways to learn English vowel sounds!

English vowels can be confusing. It can be hard to tell when to use which letter when spelling, and the differences in pronunciation are sometimes small
and difficult to hear.

But don’t worry! We’ve put together eight fun games that you can play to practice English vowelsand greatly improve your pronunciation.

What Are Vowels?

In the English language, the letters “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” “u” and sometimes “y” are called vowels.

When you speak, you let out air through your mouth. Vowels make the sounds that come when the air leaving your mouth isn’t blocked by anything (like
your teeth or your tongue). They are formed by moving your lips to different shapes.

The rest of the letters in the alphabet are called consonants. When speaking, consonants have sounds that are made by partially or fully blocking the air
flow.

To form words, we put vowels together with consonants in a specific order. Here’s a simple example. Read this out loud:

cat

Easy enough, right? The vowel “a” is placed between the consonants “c” and “t” to form the word fora small furry animal with pointy ears. Now try reading
this out loud:

You could say that many different ways:

like the “æ” sound in “cat”

like the name of the letter “a”
like an “ahh”…

So how you pronounce the letter “a” depends on the letters around it.

Finally, try to read this:

ct

That’s not as easy, is it? If you put a different vowel between the “c”and the “t,” the word gets a different meaning (like “cot” or “cut”).Consonants and
vowels need each other!

The Many Ways to Pronounce English Vowel Sounds

A vowel’s position in a word can affect the way you pronounce it. You can memorize some pronunciation rules or learn by finding patterns in words.

All vowels have at least two pronunciations: a long sound and a short sound. A long vowel is the name of the vowel (for example, long “a” is “ay” like in the
word “say”). A short vowel is a shorter sound (for example, short “a” sounds like “æ” from the word“cat”).

Words are split up into syllables, which are uninterrupted bits of sound that form the word. Each syllable has one vowel sound. You can find the syllables
in a word by placing your hand below your chin and saying it out loud. Every time your chin touches your hand, that’s a syllable. You can double check
with sites like “How Many Syllables.”

Here are five of the most common rules for vowel pronunciation:

1. When a word or syllable ends in a consonant and has only one vowel, that vowel is short.

Examples: cat, bed, fish

2. When a word ends in “e,” the “e” is silent (not read out loud), and the vowel that comes before it is long.

Examples: bake, file, rope

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3. When a syllable has two vowels next to each other, the first is usually long and the second short.

Examples: pain, boat, grow

4. When a syllable ends in one vowel, that vowel is usually long.

Examples: open, unit, paper

5. Many times, these rules don’t work! There are many exceptions (times when the rules are broken). Sometimes the only way to learn something is to
practice and memorize it.

However you decide to learn, knowing the rules and how to actually make the sounds are both important to become fluent.

8 Unique Ways to Practice English Vowel Sounds

We know it can be hard to memorize rules and pronunciations, though. But don’t worry, that’s why we’re sharing these games—to make the learning
process easier for you. Here are some fun ways to learn and improve your knowledge of English vowel sounds:

1. Pronunciation Mazes
A pronunciation maze is a worksheet filled with words. To complete the sheet, you have to get from a word on top to a word on the bottom, by finding
words with the same vowel sounds.

Here is a pronunciation maze for the sound “u” as in the word “but.”
Here is another maze for the sound “oo” as in“book.”
Here’s a maze for the “o” “ou” and “u” sounds.
Here’s another maze.

You can find many other mazes online by searching Google or Google image for “pronunciation maze.”

What you can learn: Vowels change their sound based on where they are in the word and the letters that surround them. Doing a pronunciation maze
makes you aware of vowel sounds, and helps you hear the difference between “bit” and “beat,” for example.

If you pay close attention, you can begin to notice some patterns—like that words with the letters “ea” in the middle usually make a similar sound (but not
always!). That means the next time you see a word that has the letters “ea,” you might be able to pronounce it correctly without even knowing what it
means.

2. Shadow Reading
Find a short clip from a movie, TV show or even your favorite commercial. If you don’t want to waste time searching YouTube, just use a clip from FluentU!
FluentU is an online language immersion platform where you can learn English through real-world videos—like news, vlogs, music videos, cartoons and
inspiring talks. See more about FluentU at the end of the post!

Then turn on the subtitles (or use FluentU for interactive subtitles with definitions) and watch the clip twice.

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On the first time, just watch silently. On the second time, say the words along with the clip. Try to match the pronunciation, intonation (the rise and fall of
the voice) and speed of the audio. This exercise is called “shadow reading.”

What you can learn: Speaking fluently is not just about knowing the right words and grammar. It’s about knowing how to say them, too. Speaking with
the clip will help you practice speaking faster without pausing, and pronounce words correctly.

3. Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are a series of words that repeat the same sounds a lot, which makes them difficult to say fast. You can find a list of excellent vowel-
focused tongue twisters here and here.

Choose a tongue twister and say it out loud. Say it quite slowly at first, and focus on pronouncing the vowels correctly. As you get more comfortable, say
the tongue twister faster and faster. How fast can you go before your tongue gets all twisted up?

Use your phone to record audio of your English tutor or language partner saying the tongue twister slowly, and then faster. Use the audio to practice.
Alternatively, you could also search for a YouTube video of a native speaker saying the tongue twister.

What you can learn: You’ve heard it before—practice, practice, practice! There’s no better way to learn than to practice. Tongue twisters are a fun way
to practice saying certain sounds. The better you get at the tongue twisters, the better you will get at pronouncing different English vowel sounds correctly.

4. Silent Film
Find a movie clip or any other short video that has actual people speaking. (Once again, you can easily find a great clip for this activity onFluentU.) Before
pressing “play,” turn off the sound and remove the subtitles. Watch the clip and try to understand what the people are saying by the way their lips move.

What you can learn: Sound might come from the throat, but our mouths are where those sounds are shaped into letters and words. The shape of your
mouth and location of your tongue when you speak are important for pronouncing words correctly.

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Paying attention to the shape of peoples’ mouths when they speak can make it easier to understand and repeat the same sounds. Watching people
speaking (with the sound off) makes you more aware of mouth shapes, and can help you understand how to pronounce the same sounds correctly.

The “u” sound in the word “rebuke” and the “oo” sound in the word “book” might seem similar, for example, but if you watch someone say the two words
you’ll see the difference (your lips have to be more curled to make the “u” sound).

5. “Reading” the Dictionary

The next time you look up a new word in a dictionary, try to say the word out loud first, pronouncing as well as you can.

Then listen to the dictionary pronunciation of the word, say it together with the audio, and finally say it out loud on your own. Come as close as you can to
what you hear.

What you can learn: You probably use an online dictionary or a dictionary app when you’re looking up new English words. If you only use the word and
definition, then you’re missing out on some of the best features of online dictionaries!

Most online dictionaries have an audio button, which will say the word out loud for you. Some online dictionaries—like the Cambridge English Dictionary—
even have a different audio button for American and British English, so you can hear the word in both accents.

Another useful feature of any dictionary (physical book or online) is the pronunciation guide. It might take a bit of time, but it’s useful to understand the
dictionary pronunciation guide. This guide shows you how to pronounce any word in the dictionary. Now you’ll always know how to pronounce a word!

6. Minimal Pairs
Minimal pairs are words that sound the same except for one sound change, like “lice” and “rice” or “sit” and “seat.”

For this exercise, you’ll need a list of minimal pairs (you can find a good onehere). Practice or record yourself saying the words out loud, speaking clearly
and exaggerating the sounds (making them sound bigger and more important than they actually are).

What you can learn: Sometimes it’s difficult to hear the difference between certain vowel sounds. You can make it easier for yourself to hear the
difference by practicing saying similar words. By making the sounds larger, you can hear and feel the difference better.

7. Read Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is a well-known children’s book author. His books are meant for kids to learn to speak (and read) well by using simple and catchy rhymes.
Some Dr. Seuss books are an excellent way to learn vowel pronunciation!

The three best Dr. Seuss books for learning vowel pronunciation are “Oh Say Can You Say,” “Fox in Socks,” and “Hop on Pop.” Read them out loud!

Need some help? You can find audiobook versions of the books on Audible, or just search YouTube for read-alouds of them. Here’s a reading of “Oh Say
Can You Say,” here’s one of “Fox in Socks,” and here’s one of “Hop on Pop,” for example.

What you can learn: Children’s books are great learning tools no matter what age you are. The words, rhythms and rhymes in Dr. Seuss books make
them easy to remember and read. Since the books are meant to teach kids in the simplest way possible, you’ll be learning useful topics like long and short
vowels, different vowel sounds and spelling patterns… all without even realizing it!

8. Song Games
There are a number of children’s songs that help teach different vowels. Listen to and try to sing along with songs like“Apples and Bananas” and “The
Frog Doesn’t Wash His Feet.”

These songs, and others like them, change the vowel sounds in words. This results in many nonsense words, like “benene” instead of “banana.” This is
an effective method to learn vowel sounds because the rest of the word doesn’t change—so you can focus on the vowel sounds instead.

What you can learn: It’s important to know the right pronunciation of a word, but just knowing how to make the different vowel sounds can help you
speak correctly.

Learning vowel sounds and pronunciations will make it easier for you to learn new English words. Take some time to practice and learn with these
exercises and you’ll be having fun and learning at the same time.

And One More Thing…

If you like learning authentic English lessons like this one, then you’ll love FluentU. As we noted earlier,FluentU uses popular talk shows, catchy music
videos, and funny commercials to teach you English:

FluentU makes it really easy to watch English videos. How? There are interactive captions. In other words, you can tap on any word to see an image,
definition, and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word “brought,” then you see this:

You can learn any video’s vocabulary with FluentU. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

The coolest part? FluentU knows the vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses your vocabulary to
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recommend you examples and videos. You have a truly personalized experience.

Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU
app from the iTunes store.

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn English with
real-world videos.

Experience English immersion online!

If you want to watch it, FluentU’s probably got it.

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 FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

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