Short Vowel Sounds

Short vowel sounds are not pronounced in a longer way. A short vowel word is any word that doesn’t allow the vowel within it to generate that vowel’s long vowel sound. The words like pet, cat, pig, trick, milk, cup have short vowels. To identify a short vowel, we will have to listen to the sound a word has not the letter. For Example: Letter ‘a’ has short vowel in the words fan, map, ago, but long vowel in the words mark, arms. The same letter can be pronounced as short and long vowel in one word. For example: In the word alarm /əˈlɑːm/ the letter ‘a’ is pronounced as short and long vowel.

Short Vowel Sound Rule:

When there is one vowel in a word, either at the beginning or between two consonants, it usually has the short vowel sound.

 They can be compared with long vowel sounds.

Example: The word ‘sit’ has a short /i/ sound, whilst the equivalent long sound /i:/ produces the word ‘seat’.

Learners need practice to discriminate and produce short and long vowels.

 Remember these points about short vowel sounds:

– a short English vowel is noticeably shorter than a long vowel
– an English short vowel is made with only one mouth position
– one mouth position is represented by one IPA symbol (every sound /mouth position has a different IPA symbol) 

There are 7 IPA symbols for English short vowels. The IPA for English short vowels are: 

/ɪ/, /e/, /æ/, /ʌ/, /ʊ/ , /ɒ/, /ə/

Let’s check out these 7 short vowels, their symbols and various examples in words with phonetic transcription to understand the pronunciation for the sounds in a better way.

/ ə /  about  /əbaʊt/, ago /əgəʊ/, letter /letə/

/ ɪ /    pit  /pɪt/, sit /sɪt/, kit /kɪt/

/ ʌ /   mud /mʌd/, bus /bʌs/, cup /kʌp/,

          shut / ʃ ʌ t/

/ɒ /    lot /lɒt /, cot /kɒt/, dot /dɒt/, pot /pɒt/

/e/     bed /bed/, head /hed/, red /red/, get /get/

/ʊ/   foot  /fʊt/, good /gʊd/, cook /kʊk/, look /lʊk/

/æ /   bad /bæd/, cat /kæt/, mat /mæt/, rat /ræt/

Word Pairs – Short vowels to Long Vowels

Short Vowel	Long Vowel
hit	heat
sit	seat
foot	food
bin	been
plan	plant
pull	pool
breath	breathe
bit	beat
hug	huge

If you have understood short vowel sounds well, try to find out the answers of the following questions.

1. Choose the word which has letter ‘a’ as a short vowel.

Almost

Farm

Name

Ago

≡2. In which of the following words, is letter ‘a’ pronounced in different way?

Almost

Auto

Apply

Awesome

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