Diphthongs- Impure Vowels

Hello everyone! 
In my previous post, I explained you about 12 Monophthongs or pure vowels out of 20 vowels. To know about Monophthongs, you can click here. In this post, I will explain about 8 Diphthong sounds.

Diphthongs

A diphthong is a sound made by combining two vowels specifically when it starts as one vowel sound and goes to another sound. If we break the word diphthong, we get two parts Di and phthong. That means two sounds. When we pronounce diphthong sound, there is a glide or shift from one sound to another sound.This glide from one sound to another makes one diphthong sound.That is why diphthongs can also be called impure or gliding vowels.

8 Diphthongs with Examples

These are the 8 diphthong sounds given below with various examples and phonetic transcription for the words.

1./eɪ/   eight/eɪt/,face/feɪs/,day /deɪ/,break/breɪk/

  2./ɔɪ/

oil/ɔɪl/,boy/bɔɪ/, boil /bɔɪl/,choice/tʃɔɪs/,

  3./aɪ/

ice/aɪs/,my/maɪ/,price/praɪs/,high/haɪ/

  4. /aʊ/ 

owl/aʊl/, shout /ʃaʊt/, how /haʊ/

 5. /əʊ/

 joke/dʒəʊk/, slow/sləʊ/, goat/gəʊt/, no/nəʊ/

6./ɪə/ 

ear/ɪə/, beard/bɪəd/, clear/klɪə /, near/nɪə/

7./ʊə/ poor/pʊə/,cured/kʊəd/, jury/dʒʊəri/

8./eə/  

air/eə/,share/ʃeə/, care/ keə/, fair/feə/

Out of the eight diphthongs,(1)three diphthongs /eɪ//ɔɪ//aɪ/ glide towards /ɪ/. (2)Two diphthongs /aʊ//əʊ/ glide towards /ʊ/. (3) Three diphthongs /ɪə//ʊə//eə/ glide towards /ə/.   

In the Diphthongs grouped under (1) and (2) the movement of the glide is towards closer position and in the group (3) the glide is towards the centre position. This was all about the diphthong sounds. Click here o know about tconsonant speech sounds and their symbols. To understand the pronunciation of the above sounds and their examples,please click the video below. 

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