ENGLISH ALPHABET PHONETIC SOUNDS

First Step

To learn the English language, you will first need to know and understand the alphabet, how to pronounce each letter, and the sounds each letter makes. 

That is what is known as the English alphabet phonetic sounds.  Some of the letters make more than one sound, based on the letters around them and what the word is.

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The alphabet is as follows:

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz.

Upper case (CAPITAL) letters are the larger letters. Lower case (lower case) letters are the smaller letters.  The sounds letters make are unaffected by CAPITAL or lowercase.

The letters Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, and Uu are called vowels.  Vowels change their sounds depending on the letters around them.  Nearly all English words contain at least one vowel.  The letter Yy is also sometimes a vowel.

The remaining letters are called consonants.  Most of them make only one sound, regardless of the letters around them.  However, some consonants do change their sounds depending on the letters around them.  For example, the letters Cc, Gg, Hh, and Ww do make different sounds depending on the words that surround them.  Furthermore, there are times that sometimes letters make no sound at all and are completely silent.

Before we go forward, please understand that English derives from other languages and has incorporated a variety of pronunciations, also known as exceptions.  It’s what makes English such a difficult language to learn.

A little about vowels

Vowels are the letters that most often change the sounds they make and their pronunciations, depending on the letters that surround them. All vowels have at least two pronunciations and make at least two distinct different sounds.  When they say their own names, they are called long vowels.  When they do not say their own names, they are called short vowels. However there are several exceptions where vowels are neither long nor short vowels.  Unfortunately, this is one part of English that you will have to learn and simply memorize.  There are too many to mention.

Long vowels, that say their own name, at least much of the time, is when they are in words that end with the letter e.  For example, the word made is pronounced with the letter a saying its own name.  It is a long a.  The word mad, without the e at the end, the letter a does not say its own name.  The a is a short a. In the word site, the i says its own name.  It is a long i.  In the word sit, there is no e at the end, so the i is a short i and does not say its own name.

We will discuss other exceptions and variations about how letters are pronounced and when they change their pronunciations in a later lesson.

Numbers Are Important Too

To learn English, you also need know how to pronounce the numbers.  Following is the proper spelling of numbers that will provide a basis for how to pronounce them.  Some of the numbers are examples of how letters make different sounds depending on the letters that surround them.

They are:  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

The numbers in increments of ten are as follows:  Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety.

Large numbers are as follows:  Hundred, thousand, million, billion, trillion, and more.

Once you know how to pronounce the numbers I hope you will recognize them in numerical form, rather than in written form.

There are two kinds of numbers

Above, I explained what are called cardinal numbers.  The other kind of numbers are called cardinal numbers.  Cardinal numbers indicate sequence and the order of things.

For example, the heading above is “first step”, because it was the number one thing written about in this article.  One (1) is first (1st), two (2) is second (2nd), three (3) is third (3rd), four (4) is fourth (4th), five (5) is fifth (5th), six is sixth, seven is seventh, eight is eighth, nine is ninth, ten is tenth, eleven is eleventh, twelve is twelfth, thirteen is thirteenth, fourteen is fourteenth, fifteen is fifteenth, sixteen is sixteenth, seventeen is seventeenth, eighteen is eighteenth, nineteen is nineteenth, and twenty (20) is twentieth (20th).

From there, it is the same process for numbers into infinity.  For example, 21 is 21st, 32 is 32nd, 43 is 43rd, 100 is 100th etc.

Review

The first step in understanding English is to understand the alphabet and the numbers, and how they are pronounced.  Going forward, you will learn that there are countless exceptions to the rules of pronunciation.  It’s just the way it is.  By understanding the general rules, you will be able to move forward much more easily than if you don’t understand.

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