Rules for reading English sounds. How to read and pronounce English transcription. Combinations of consonants

Each English word is a complete, but at the same time unique mosaic, which was assembled from individual, tiny parts called syllables. A syllable can be a letter, or sometimes a whole group of consonants and vowels, which the English pronounce in different ways. But, despite the varied reading, the main types of syllables in English language there are four in total: open and closed, syllables like “vowel + r” and “vowel + r + vowel”. Well, let's discuss them in more detail. Let's do this!

Open syllable in English (type I)

Peculiarities:

• In an open syllable, only one vowel is used.
• The vowel is pronounced the same as in the alphabet.
• A vowel is the last letter in a syllable.
• Open syllables have at most one consonant between the open syllable and the following vowel.

Examples of reading vowels in an open syllable:

Letter " A» [ eɪ] - fame - glory, baby ["beɪbɪ] - child, female ["fi:meɪl] - female individual.

Letter " O» [ əu] - note - note, zero ["zɪərəu] - zero, frozen ["frəuz(ə)n] - frozen.

Letter " E» [ ɪ ] - we - we, behind - behind, uneven [ʌn"i:v(ə)n] - unbalanced.

Letter " I» [ aɪ] - icy ["aɪsɪ] - icy, iris ["aɪərɪs] - iris (eyes), ivory ["aɪv(ə)rɪ] - ivory or cocaine.

Letter " Y» [ aɪ] - wry - curve, apply [ə"plaɪ] - make a request, descry - consider.

Letter " U» [ ju:] - funeral ["fju:n(ə)rəl] - funeral, museum - museum, universe ["ju:nɪvɜ:s] - universe.

Closed syllable in English (type II)

Peculiarities:

• A closed syllable uses only one vowel.
• If a word consists of only two letters, then it must end with a consonant.
• If a word has only three letters, then in a closed syllable one consonant comes before and one (or more) comes after the vowel.
• If a word has two closed syllables following each other, there will be consonants between the vowels.
• All sounds are short/short.

Examples of reading vowels in a closed syllable:

Letter " A» [ æ ] - tomcat ["tɔmkæt] - cat, wombat ["wɔmbæt] - wombat, snatch - robbery.

Letter " O» [ ɔ ] - clot - lump, pol - politician, common ["kɔmən] - universal.

Letter " E» [ e] - gen - information, businessmen ["bɪznɪsmən] - entrepreneurs, nest - nest.

Letter " I» [ ɪ ] - chit - note, splinter ["splɪntə] - splinter, miff - quarrel.

Letter " Y» [ ɪ ] - mythology - mythology, system ["sɪstəm] - system, mystify ["mɪstɪfaɪ] - to mystify.

Letter " U» [ ʌ ] - make-up ["meɪkʌp] - makeup, rummer ["rʌmə] - large glass, blush - blush.

Syllable of the form “vowel + r” (type III)

Peculiarities:

• Last letters of a syllable: (consonant) + vowel + “r”.
• In this type of English syllable, all sounds are long and in transcription have a special designation in the form of “:”.

Examples of reading of the third type:

Letter " A» [ ɑ: ] - barge - barge, bazar - masquerade fair as an oriental bazaar, guitar - guitar.

Letter " O» [ ɔ: ] - pork - pork, torque - twisted metal necklace, orc [ɔ:k] - orc.

Letter " E» [ ɜ: ] - erne [ɜ:n] - white-tailed eagle, therm [θɜ:m] - unit of heat, fern - fern.

Letter " I» [ ɜ: ] - pirn - coil, smirch - dirty spot, kirn - harvest festival.

Letter " Y» [ ɜ: ] - myrrh - aromatic resin, myrtle ["mɜ:tl] - myrtle, Mr. Byrd - Mr. Bird.

Letter " U» [ ɜ: ] - spur - spur (on shoes), blur - spot, concur - occur simultaneously.

Syllable of the form “vowel + “r” + vowel” (type IV)

Peculiarities:

• Some vowels become triphthongs or diphthongs.
• Diphthong ( diphthong) is a sound formed by a combination of two vowels in one syllable, in which the sound is first pronounced as one vowel, but then smoothly flows into the other.
• Thrifthong ( triplethong) is a combination of three letters or sounds.

Examples of reading type four:

Letter " A» [ ɛə ] - Maryland ["mɛərɪlænd] - Maryland, wary ["wɛərɪ] - careful, canary - canary.

Letter " O» [ ɔ: ] - shore [ʃɔ:] - shore, more - more numerous, swore - swore.

Letter " E» [ ɪə ] - sphere - ball, here - here, revere - read.

Letter " I» [ aɪə] - mire ["maɪə] - quagmire, crossfire ["krɔsfaɪə] - crossfire, retirement - retirement.

Letter " Y» [ aɪə] - tire ["taɪə] - tire, lyre ["laɪə] - lyre, gyre ["dʒaɪə] - circular rotation.

Letter " U» [ juə] - purely ["pjuəlɪ] - without impurities, cureless ["kjuələs] - incurable, demure - modest.

Silent vowel "E"

• A voiceless syllable or a syllable with a silent vowel "e" at the end.
• Consists of a vowel, followed by a consonant, and then the letter “e”, which is not pronounced.
• As a rule, this is the final syllable in the root part of the word.

Reading examples: fake - counterfeit, centime ["sɑ:nti:m] - centime, commune ["kɔmju:n] - community etc.

NOTA BENE: In English, silent vowels at the end of words are considered to indicate that the syllables are open. Accordingly, vowels are read in exactly the same way.

How to become an English pronunciation guru

• Record your speech with a voice recorder to identify problematic aspects of pronunciation that you should work on in the future.
• Take your time and watch your breathing, as speaking speed is not always an indicator of fluency and clear pronunciation.
• Close your eyes and visualize the process of creating sound as you speak.
• Pronunciation is a physical skill, since when speaking in foreign language you use different facial muscles. For this reason, always practice sounds that don't come out.
• Good pronunciation is not just about mastering individual sounds. Pay attention to intonation and stress.
• Practice in front of a mirror, paying attention to the position of your mouth and tongue.
• Listen to English-language podcasts, watch movies and repeat after native speakers.
• Problems with pronunciation persist because we are afraid of making mistakes. Do not be afraid.
• Practice the language when you are alone in a comfortable environment.
• Find a language learning buddy and compare notes. A little outside criticism is a good thing.
• Sing your favorite songs in English, feel the rhythm and accents of intonation.
• And finally, be sure to read to ensure you become a master of phonetics.

Conclusion

Although learning the types of syllables in English will take some time, simple reading rules will subsequently help improve not only phonetics, but also spelling. In addition, this will allow you to expand your vocabulary and use new knowledge during live communication with natives.

Speak English right and be awesome ;)

Big and friendly EnglishDom family

Transcription and reading rules in English are two closely related concepts. Reading rules explain how letters and letter combinations are pronounced in different cases, and with the help of transcription we record and read speech sounds.

Reading rules can confuse a beginner. There are many of them, they are confusing, and there are more exceptions than the rules themselves. In fact, these rules are only so scary if you understand them deeply and try to learn them by heart, along with the exceptions. In reality, everything is much simpler: reading rules do not need to be remembered by heart.

While studying English, you will constantly be doing something, and soon you will learn to correlate letters and sounds without thinking, automatically. There is no need to worry about exceptions either. Usually the pronunciation, spelling and meaning of a word are remembered as one whole - you just know that such and such a word is pronounced this way.

Feature of English phonetics: we write “Manchester” - we read “Liverpool”

The phonetics of the English language has a noticeable feature: words are often read differently from how they are written, that is, from the spelling of a word it is not always possible to guess how it is pronounced. As linguists joke: “We write “Manchester”, but read “Liverpool.”

In the history of many languages, the following pattern can be traced: the phonetic structure becomes more complex, but the letters and spelling remain the same or change with great delay. English is no exception. At the dawn of its development, words were read and pronounced more or less similar, but over time this discrepancy became greater and greater, the situation was aggravated by the diversity of dialects, and now we are in words though, thought And through read a combination of letters - ough completely different, although the words themselves differ by one letter.

Nobody is in a hurry to reform English spelling; there are many reasons for this. For example, the English language has long no longer had a single “control center”. Reforms initiated in London may be coolly received in Sydney and rejected in Washington. And in general, spelling reform is always a painful process that meets resistance among a significant part of native speakers. It's much easier to leave it as is.

What is transcription and why is it needed?

Transcription in English is the recording of speech sounds using special characters. She should not be afraid or avoided, because she is a very good assistant in learning the language, which will be great for saving time and helping to avoid mistakes. One glance at the transcription of an English word is enough for you to understand how it is read correctly.

When you memorize or write down a new word that comes across in the text, you definitely need to look at its transcription and/or listen to the pronunciation (for example, in), otherwise you may remember it incorrectly, and then they will not understand you.

Is it possible to write English words in Russian letters?

Sometimes on websites or even in books you can see “ English transcription in Russian” or “pronunciation English words in Russian letters” – that is, writing English words in Russian letters. Like, why learn sophisticated icons if Can convey sounds in Russian letters? Then what it is forbidden. The phonetics of the Russian language differs from the English phonetics so much that the sound can only be conveyed very, very approximately. We simply do not have some sounds of English speech, as well as vice versa.

Transcription and pronunciation of all sounds of the English language separately (video)

With this interesting video table, you can listen to the sound of all sounds separately and see how they are recorded using transcription. Click on play and wait for the video to load completely, then click on the sound you want.

Please note that in the transcription, in addition to the symbols themselves denoting sounds, the following are used:

• Square brackets– traditionally, transcription is always written in [square brackets]. For example: [z].
• Vowel length icon– in English, vowels can be long or short, longitude is indicated by a colon after the vowel. For example: .
• Accent icon– if a word with more than one syllable is transcribed, the stress must be indicated with an apostrophe (comma at the top). It is placed before the stressed syllable. For example: – decision.

In total, there are 44 sounds in the English language, which, like in Russian, are divided into consonants and vowels. Among them there are sounds similar to Russian, for example: [b] - [b], [n] - [n], and sounds that have no analogues in the Russian language: [ ð ], [θ ].

In English phonetics there are no such concepts as softness/hardness of consonants, but there is longitude of vowels (not characteristic of the Russian language) - vowels can be short [a] and long. It should also be noted that vowel sounds in English can be:

• single (monophthongs): [ i: ], [ e ],
• consisting of two sounds (diphtogni): [ ai ], [ ɔi ],
• consisting of three sounds (triphthongs): [ aiə ].

Diphthongs and triphthongs are read and perceived as solid sounds.

Table of English sounds with examples and cards

Having studied how English sounds are pronounced individually, be sure to listen to how they are read whole words. It is often easier for students to understand and hear the pronunciation English sounds when they sound as part of a word, and not separately.

In the tables below, all sounds are given with example words. Using electronic cards you can listen to the pronunciation.

How to learn to pronounce English sounds?

There are two approaches:

1. Theoretical– textbooks usually have a detailed description of how to press your tongue to the roof of your mouth to form a certain sound. With an illustration showing a cross-section of a human head. The method is scientifically correct, but it is difficult to use on your own: not everyone will understand what it means to “slide the upper teeth along the lower lip” and will be able to perform this action.
2. Practical– listen, watch and repeat. I think it's much easier this way. You simply repeat after the announcer, trying to imitate the sound as accurately as possible. Pay attention to articulation, try to repeat all movements of the lips and tongue. Ideally, of course, someone should supervise, but you can simply record yourself on a webcam and watch from the outside.

If you want to repeat after the speaker, imitating his speech, I recommend using the materials on Puzzle English, namely the “Video Puzzles” exercises, which are aimed at developing listening comprehension. In video puzzles, you can slow down your speech and, as in Lingvaleo, watch the translation of words by clicking on them directly in the subtitles.

In video puzzles, you first need to watch a video and then assemble sentences from words.

Detailed review of this service:

In addition, many kind people have made many videos for practical training that are available on YouTube. For example, these two videos examine in detail the sounds of English speech in the American and British versions:

British pronunciation

American pronunciation

When you start learning English, you shouldn’t strive to achieve “perfect” pronunciation. Firstly, there are a lot of varieties of pronunciation (the “generalized” British and American versions are presented above), and secondly, even native speakers who speak professionally (for example, actors) often take lessons from special trainers in order to master the features of or another version of pronunciation - practicing speech is not an easy task.

Just try to speak in a way that 1) is understandable and 2) doesn’t hurt your ears too much.

Reading rules in English: table and cards

Reading rules in English are, rather, not even rules, but generalized recommendations that are not particularly accurate. Not only can, say, the letter “o” in different combinations and syllable types be read in nine different ways, but there are also exceptions. For example, in the words food, too it is read as , and in the words good, look – as [u]. There is no pattern here, you just need to remember this.

If you look in different books, it turns out that the rules of reading, and phonetics in general, by different authors can be told in different ways with varying degrees of immersion in detail. I think that there is no point in delving into the jungle of phonetic science (you can dive into it ad infinitum), and the easiest way is to take as a basis the most simplified version of the reading rules, that is reading rules in English for children.

For this article, I took as a basis the rules given in the textbook “English. Grades 1 – 4 in diagrams and tables” N. Vakulenko. Believe me, this is more than enough for both children and adults!

What is an open and closed syllable?

In English, there are open and closed syllables; it also matters whether it ends with the letter “r” and whether it is stressed.

A syllable is called open if:

• the syllable ends with a vowel and is the last in the word,
• a vowel is followed by another vowel,
• a vowel is followed by a consonant, and followed by one or more vowels.

A syllable is closed if:

• it is the last in the word, and ends with a consonant,
• A vowel is followed by two or more consonants.

In these cards and the table below you can see how different letters are pronounced in different combinations and syllable types.

The most important reading rules

The table above looks very busy, even intimidating. From this we can highlight several of the most important rules, which have almost no exceptions.

Basic rules for reading consonants

• The combination ph is read as [f]: photo, Morpheus.
• The combination th is read as [ð] or [θ]: think there. These sounds do not exist in the Russian language; their pronunciation requires some practice. Do not confuse them with the sounds [s], [z].
• The combination ng at the end of a word is read as [ŋ] - this is a nasal (that is, pronounced as if in the nose) version of the sound [n]. A common mistake is to read it as . There is no “g” in this sound. Examples: strong, King Kong, wrong.
• The combination sh is read as [ʃ]: ship, show, shop.
• The letter “c” before i, e, y is read as [s]: celebrity, cent, pencil.
• The letter “g” before i, e, y is read as: age, magic, gym.
• The combination ch is read as: match, catch.

Basic rules for reading vowels

• In an open stressed syllable, vowels are usually read as in: no, go, name, face, pupil, he, five. These can be monophthongs and diphthongs.
• In a closed syllable, vowels are read as short monophthongs: nut, got, ten.

How to remember reading rules?

Most people who are fluent in English as a foreign language will not be able to immediately name even a few basic reading rules. Rules readings do not need to be memorized, you need to be able to use them. But is it possible to use what you don’t know? As much as possible! Thanks to frequent practice, knowledge turns into skills and actions begin to be performed automatically, unconsciously.

In order for the reading rules to quickly reach the automatic stage, I recommend:

• Study the rules themselves - read, comprehend, speak examples out loud.
• Practicing reading aloud will help develop pronunciation skills, and at the same time, the rules of reading will be reinforced. Take the text with audio, video with subtitles so that you have something to compare it with.
• Do small written works– writing practice is useful for development vocabulary, consolidating grammar knowledge and, of course, improving spelling.

Friends! I don't currently tutor, but if you need a teacher, I recommend this wonderful site- there are native (and non-native) language teachers there 👅 for all occasions and for any pocket 🙂 I myself took more than 80 lessons with the teachers I found there! I advise you to try it too!

This article is for those who only learning to read English. The twenty-first lesson is devoted to the topic "English alphabet", and to remember it better, a video is attached to the alphabet (classic British version).

There are two methods of teaching reading: from sound to letter And from letter to sound. The first twenty lessons of the cycle were based on the methodology "from sound to letter" and now that we've passed all english sounds, you can safely move to another level. Therefore, in the next five lessons we will go "from letter to sound" and today it's time to learn English alphabet.

In Lesson #21 you will learn that

• There are only 6 vowels in English;
• what is an open syllable?
• how vowels are read in an open syllable.

Let's start with the English alphabet. Listen to the song "ABC", watch the video and remember how to pronounce letters in English. Total in English 6 vowels And 20 consonants.

English Alphabet Video ABC Song

(classic British version)

Learned English alphabet? Then let's move on. This is what the alphabet looks like in writing: Rules for reading vowels in English

REMEMBER:

1. total in English 6 vowels:

Aa —

Ee —

II —

Oo —

Uu —

Yy —

1. a vowel under stress is read in 4 ways, depending on what type of syllable it is in. In total there are 24 sounds.

Types of syllables in English

Rule (main thing). In an open syllable, the vowel letter is read as in the alphabet.

f a mous = f a-mous

c u cumber=c u-cum-ber

In English there is also conditionally open syllable. This monosyllabic words with an "e" at the end. EXAMPLES. P e te, l a te,c o ke.

Letter e at the end of a word unreadable and called " e-mute". It shows that the root vowel must be read, as in the alphabet. There are a lot of such words in the English language.

How to divide a word into syllables? (repetition)

How to divide a word into syllables? Let's take, for example, the word CUCUMBER (cucumber) and divide it into syllables.

General rule that's how it is: as many vowels as there are syllables.

C U C U M.B. E R - three vowels, therefore three syllables: C U-C U M-B E R

1. The first syllable ends in a vowel => it open
2. The second syllable ends in a consonant => he closed
3. The third syllable ends in a consonant => he too closed

Parsing:

BER: the letter combination ER at the end of a word is read as [ə]

But don't worry about it just yet, the most important thing to remember is that vowels in English in an OPEN SYLLABLE they are read as in the alphabet. Therefore, if you have learned the English alphabet (the video, of course, will speed up this process), then you can already read the words with open syllable.

Now let's get started repeating the rules for reading vowels. Let me remind you that there are only 6 of them. Let's take the first letter of the alphabet. It reads "Hey". It's easy to remember if you look at the picture. " Hey, who eats nuts? Find the sound and listen to how it is pronounced -

So, let's move on to reading the first vowel of the English alphabet. Letter A in a stressed syllable denotes 4 sounds. See TABLE below. Moreover, if letter A stands in an unstressed syllable, it is read [ə] .

So, before you start reading first vowel of the English alphabet, summarize:

• in the first (open) type of syllable (I) all stressed vowels are read as in the alphabet
• and in the second (II), third (III) and fourth (IV) - according to the table

Reading the English letter A in four syllable types

So, let's start reading. Here in front of you 4 syllable types (I - open, II-closed, III, IV). The square brackets indicate how to pronounce the letter Aa in this type of syllable UNDER Stress. Phrases are tongue twisters that need to be repeated many times to remember. reading the letter Aa in the appropriate syllable type.

For those who have just joined. A dictionary is connected to the site, click on a word and you will hear it correct pronunciation. To hear how to pronounce the sound in [square brackets], look it up in the phonemic chart.

Reading the vowel Aa in 4 types of syllables. Tongue Twisters

1. - This l a ke is a f a mouse pl a ce in W a les. (see Lesson #20)

2. [æ] - Abl a ck c a ts a t on a m a t and a te a f a t r a t. (see Lesson #3)

3. —Thep ar ks, g ar dens and f ar ms are l ar ge and ch ar ming. (Lesson #6)

4. - My p are nts* take c are of r are h are s. (see Lesson #18)

LISTEN to how the sounds are pronounced , [æ], , —

*parents – [`peərənts]

Pronunciation is important! For you, the author's pronunciation lessons:

Phonetic exercises for reading the letter A in open and closed syllables

A(I,II):

lake, jam, apple, famous, name, fan, trade, lamp, maze, batman, gate, stand, to behave, matter, skate, as, cable, take, rabbit, amazing , to decamp, to debate, Danish, raffish, rally, slake, snake, slam, fate, place, blame, can, rage, frank, splash, spade, damp, African, admiral, age, and, to arrange, to attack;

to is a verb feature. Most verbs have stress on the second syllable

Phonetic exercises for reading the letter A in the third and fourth type of syllable

A (III,IV):

car, large, care, rare, cart, hare, chart, card, stare, dark, market, bare, yard, star, glare, far, bar, apartment, parents, spare, scare, lark, mare, bare, dare, carpet, particle, barefoot, March, larch, square.

Exceptions:
1 – have, vase
2 – any, many [`meni], ate

In an unstressed syllable A is read as [ə]:
a bout, a round, a cross, to a ttack, alpha bet, Africa, to a dvise, to a dress

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Phonetic exercises for practicing reading the letter A with audio recording and answers (closed content)

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Title: Phonetic exercises with audio recording

Description: Access to restricted content *Repeat the rules for reading in English*

So, let's sum it up results of the twenty-first lesson on teaching English reading and pronunciation at the same time:

• you have learned the English alphabet;
• you learned what an open syllable is in English;
• do you know how to read a vowel letter Ahh in an open syllable;
• you have consolidated the pronunciation of the English sounds , [æ], , .

There are 5 vowels in English a, e, i, o, u and one semivowel y. Each vowel has several reading options. Reading depends on the type of syllable and whether the stress falls on the vowel.

Syllables are divided into open And closed. The syllable is called open, if it ends in a vowel, and this vowel may not be read. The syllable is called closed, if it ends in a consonant. [m], [n], [l] are syllabic when they come at the end of a word and are preceded by a noisy consonant. For example, table ["teı-bl], but apple ["æpl]. It should be remembered that a diphthong always forms only one syllable. For example, down.

Rules for reading vowels in a stressed syllable

In the English language, there are four main types of reading stressed vowels.

I syllable type– open syllable (the vowel is read as it is called in the alphabet)

II syllable type– closed syllable

III syllable type– syllable “vowel + r”

IV syllable type– syllable “vowel + r + vowel”

Rules for reading vowels in an unstressed syllable

The letter Aa has two reading options

• [ə] animal, about, library
• [ı] village, Sunday, language

The letter Ee has two reading options

• [ı] monkey, begin
• [ə] mother, dinner, paper

The letter Ii has one reading option

• [ı] activity, prohibit, examine

The letter Oo has one reading option

• [ə] doctor, collect, obtain

The letter Uu has two reading options

• [u] useful, useful
• [ə] difficult, success

The letter Yy has three reading options (it can convey two vowels and one consonant)

• [ı] every, happy, dirty
• dignify, occupy
• [j] yes, year, beyond

Combination of vowels

ai, ay aim, rain, day, say

au, aw[ɔ:] autumn, author, awful, law

air[ɛə] air, chair, hair

ee, ea tree, meet, eat, read

ea[e] bread, head

ear, eer[ıə] ear, dear, beer

ei, ey eight, weight, they

eu, ew, iew feud, new, view

oo too, spoon, good

oa boat, coat

oh, oh[ɔı] coin, oil, boy, toy

ou house, mouse

[ʌ] country, young

[ɔ:] four, your

ow cow, down

Snow, yellow

The letter Ee at the end of a word is not readable, so it is called dumb.

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When you study a foreign language, you learn not only a set of vocabulary and grammar, you in any case come across the culture and mentality of the people who speak this language. The best means of learning language and culture is reading in original. And to read in a foreign language, you must first learn to read this language .

You don"t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. You can just make people stop reading them.

But, if at school or university you studied German or French, or your school base turned out to be smaller than you would like, and now you have decided to learn English, then let's start with the most primary and basic and find out several methods of where to start in order to master reading rules.

English alphabet

I think you know that English is different from Russian and German, in which we mainly write and read. In English the system is a little more complicated. The very first thing we need to do is learn the alphabet.

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, including 21 consonants and 5 vowels. Knowledge of letters and the ability to pronounce them correctly is the key to successful and competent reading in English.

English alphabet with transcription of letter names.

A very easy way to memorize letters visually and aurally is with the help of a song. Watch the video and sing the song until you remember the letters of the alphabet.

You can use the same method to teach the alphabet to your children and sing the song with your kids.

Reading rules in English

After studying the alphabet, we will begin to study the combination of letters and read short words. There are a number of rules in the English language that you need to learn, practice and remember if you want to read English words correctly.

Rules for reading English consonants

Many consonants are read similarly to Russian consonants, for example the letters m, n, l, b, f, z. You can see this in words like mom, lemon, finger, boy, zebra .

Letters like t And d sound similar, but pronounced with aspirated. For example words table, teacher, dad, dirty.

Letter c has two reading options. Before letters i,e,y it reads like [s]- city, face, cyber. And before other vowels it is read as [k]- cat, cake, factory.

Rule with vowels i,e,y also works with letters g. In front of them it reads like - gym, George, giant. Before other consonants the letter is read as [g].

Letter q always occurs in a combination of letters qu and reads like - quick, queen, square.

Letter j always reads like - jacket, jam, joy.

Table of the relationship between consonants and sounds in English.

How to read vowels in English

In English, a word can end in an open or closed syllable, which affects pronunciation. For example words cat, pot, sit end in a closed syllable and have vowels a, o, i give sounds .

Words such as name, home, five end with an open syllable, since there is a letter at the end of the word e, which is not readable. But, thanks to her, the vowels in the middle of the word are read exactly the same way as they are pronounced in the alphabet, that is, the word name read .

Types of reading English vowels in stressed syllables.

Reading vowel combinations in English

There are certain combinations of letters that have established reading rules, although English tongue-tongue exceptions, and when reading more complex words, you should consult a dictionary. The table below shows combinations of English vowels with examples how they are read and what sound they make.

Table of vowel combinations in English.

And of course, there are exceptions to all rules. However, don't worry and think that you will never be able to learn it. Everything can be understood, you just need to try and practice a little.

Diphthongs of the English language with transcription

When you study the basic rules of reading, you will see that in English there are diphthong sounds that are quite difficult to reproduce, especially if you start learning the language not in childhood, but in adulthood.

Table of English diphthongs with transcription.

Transcription of sounds in English

Practice shows that when children learn a language, they must definitely study transcription, but adults do not want to learn it and it can be difficult for them.

If you still want to learn how to write and read transcriptions, then great! And if not, then you can use online dictionaries, where the word will be pronounced for you. One of best dictionaries today are Multitran and online dictionary Lingvo.

Important!

Remember that you need to use dictionaries, not translators!

Here is an example of reading short words with transcription:

Table of vowel sounds in English and transcription.

Living in the Internet age has some advantages. While sitting at home, you can master various knowledge online. For your attention video lesson, which explains the basic principles of reading. However, even after gaining knowledge through online lesson, they need to be consolidated in order for a skill to be formed.

Learn English tongue twisters

Tongue twisters, which are often aimed at practicing one sound, can help you here. Here are some examples you can use.

Don't worry about tongue twisters! At this stage, when you are just learning to read and practicing sounds, it is important to pronounce them correctly, albeit slowly. You can always speed up.

Learn to hear English speech

After learning the basic, basic rules of reading, you can use the method of repeating after the speaker. Your auditory memory will also work and you will hear how words are pronounced correctly and what intonation is in sentences.

For this, you can use short dialogues and audio books for beginners. At this level, it would be ideal if the text is in front of your eyes, you listen, read and repeat at the same time!

You can use such a great resource as Oxford bookworm Library, which features audiobooks for all levels. You can download the library for free

For those who continue to learn English, we recommend learning the language from films, which you can read about in the article

Work on your pronunciation

Learning to read is only the first step towards learning a language. Just like learning grammar and vocabulary, learning to pronounce and hear correctly is very important if you want to understand what is being said to you and say it so that you are understood. Especially if you speak with a native speaker.

As we said a little above, one of the best ways is listen carefully to native speakers and try to copy their pronunciation and intonation .

Particular attention should be paid to sounds that do not exist in your native language. Often, people learning English have a problem with the ‘r’ sound, since in Russian it is hard, but in English it is more guttural and growling.

There are also difficulties in pronouncing the two sounds that combination of letters 'th'. Students persistently pronounce it as ‘c’ and ‘z’. Although it is worth noting that in words such as this, that, there this sound is spoken as between ‘z’ and ‘d’. And in words like three, think, thief, it is pronounced as a sound between ‘f’ and ‘s’.

This may seem strange to you, since there are no such sounds in the Russian language, but if you listen to native speakers, you will understand that this is how they speak.

Don't worry if you can't say these words correctly the first time, it just takes a little practice. But, try to learn correctly from the very beginning, because it will be more difficult when you are forced to relearn.

Learn to pronounce phrases in English correctly

In English, words in sentences are not pronounced separately; they often merge as if into one whole, especially if it is a combination of a vowel and a consonant. Watch and practice with these transcription examples.

The same applies to phrases where one word ends with the letter ‘r’, and the next word begins with a vowel. In such cases, the sound 'r' is pronounced. Here are some examples.