2. English vowels
Vowels are determined by changes
in position of the lips, tongue and
palate.
These changes can be very slight
and difficult to detect.
3. Spanish/English system
How many vowels do we have in Spanish?
Long vowel
How many vowels does the English system
have?
/a:/
/æ/
/ɔː/
/ɔ/
/u:/
/u/
/i:/
/i/
Spanish
vowels
Short vowel
/e/
English vowels
/ʌ/
/ə:/
/ə/
4. /a:/
Give double quantity,
because it’s a long vowel.
Most important spellings:
ask, grass, car, clerk,
heart, half, aunt, laugh
/æ/
It is a short vowel. A didactic
resource to get an approach
would be to pronounce the
phoneme /e/
Most important spellings: flash,
match, land, lamp.
5. /ɔː/
It is a long sound. To
many Spanish
speakers it sounds
more proximate to /u/
than to /o/
Most important
spellings: horse, poor,
more, saw, board, all,
bought
/ɔ/
A didactic resource to get
an approach would be to
pronounce the
phoneme /o/
Most important spellings:
not, box, want, what,
watch, because, cough,
knowledge
6. /u:/ where
It is a close sound
/u/
the lips are moderately
rounded.It is more closed
and longer than the
Spanish ‘u’
It is a close sound where
the lips are moderately
rounded but this sound is
shorter.
Most important spellings:
spoon, shoot, soup,
route, do, June, blue,
shoe
Most important spellings:
full, put, book, look, could,
women.
7. /i:/
It is a long vowel. To
produce this vowel
give approximately
double douration to
the approximate
Castillian phoneme
Most important
spellings: see, feed,
read, eat, shield, field,
scene, people, key,
quay.
/i/
It is a closed vowel.
Spanish have difficulties
to distinguish this sound
with the long one. Both
are varieties but don’t
make any difference in
meanings
Most important spellings:
milk, fill, pin, rich, lady,
body.
8. /ə:/
There is no similar sound
in Spanish. I its a central
vowel. A didactic
procedure would be to
produce a Spanish ‘e’ and,
little by little, to
approximate it to an ‘o’, not
reaching it.
Most important spellings:
first, serve, earth, nurse,
turn, word, journey
/ə/
It is the most common
vowel to appear in
English. There is no
similar sound in Spanish.
Any vowel or group of
vowels may, in
unstressed position,
represent the schwa.
Famous, letter, woman,
should...
9. Short sounds which have not long
sounds
/e/
The Castillian ‘e’ is usually
more closed than the English
equivalent.
Most important spellings: bed,
sell, pen, head, many, any
10. Sounds of English
Let’s practice more
Let’s practice more
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