English Speech Sounds and the Usage of Articles

2. There are 44 speech sounds in English,
among them 20 are vowel sounds and 24
are consonant sounds. We use
International Phonetic Alphabet to
represent these sounds.

3. Vowels of English
Among the 20 vowel sounds, 12 vowels are
called pure vowels and 8 are called
diphthongs. Diphthongs are a combination
of two vowels sounds; it starts with one
sound and move towards another sound.
Among the 12 pure vowels, 7 vowels are
short vowels and 5 are long vowels.

4. Pure Vowels of English
7 short vowels are :
1. |ɪ| ഇ
2. |e| എ
3. |æ| അ
4. |ɒ| ഒ
5. |ʊ| ഉ
6. |ʌ| അ
7. |ə| എ

5. Pure Vowels of English
5 long vowels are:
8. |i:| ഈ
9. |u:|ഊ
10. |ɑ:| ആ
11. |ɔ:| ഓ
12. |ɜ:| ഏ

6. Diphthongs of English
8 Diphthongs are:
13. |eɪ| എഇ
14. |ɔɪ| ഒഇ
15. |aɪ| ഐ
16. |əʊ| എഉ
17. |aʊ| ഔ

7. Diphthongs of English
8 Diphthongs are:
18. |ɪə| ഇഎ
19. |eə| എഎ
20. |ʊə| ഉഎ

8. Consonants of English
There are 24 consonants in English.
1. |p| പ്
2. |b| ബ്
3. |t| ്
4. |d| ഡ്
5. |k| ക്
6. |g| ഗ്
7. |ʧ| ച്
8. |ʤ| ജ്

9. Consonants of English
9. || ഷ്
10. |ʒ| ഴ്
11. |s| സ്
12. |z| ്
13. || ത്
14. || ദ്
15. |f| ഫ്
16. |v| വ്

10. Consonants of English
17. |h| ഹ്
18. |m| മ്
19. |n| ന്
20. || ങ്
21. |l| ല്
22. |r| റ്
23. |j| യ്
24. |w| വ്

11. Articles
Usually adjectives qualify nouns through
describing a feature, but articles are used to
point out or refer to nouns. Technically, an
article is an adjective. There are three articles
in English – ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are
known as indefinite articles and ‘the’ is known
as the definite article. ‘A’ is used when the
noun begins with a consonant sound and ‘an’
is used with a noun beginning with a vowel
sound.

12. Articles
‘A’ and ‘an’ are variations of the number
‘one’. Since they cannot be used with plural
nouns and before the uncountable nouns.
Even though, ‘a’ means ‘one’, you cannot
replace ‘a’ with ‘one’; ‘one’ is used when
you want to say “only one”.

13. Articles
“The” is called the definite article because it
is used to particularise a noun. We do not
use ‘the’ to talk about things in general.
Hence, ‘the’ marks a definite person, place
or thing. ‘The’ appears everywhere without
vowel or consonant distinction.

14. Articles
The pronunciation of ‘the’ changes
depending on the word it precedes. When
the word after “the” begins with a consonant
sound, it is pronounced as /ðə/. And if the
word after “the” begins with a vowel sound,
it is pronounced as /ði/.

15. Articles
The names of newspapers and journals
as well as of the title of great books begin
with ‘the’. ‘The’ is dropped when the title is
accompanied by the name of the author
(Homer’s Iliad). But if ‘the’ is already part of
the title, it is retained (Shakespeare’s The
Tempest).

16. Articles
Definite article is usually used before an
ordinal i.e. words like first, second, 23rd etc.
If the proper noun is used as a common
noun, i.e. to denote likeness, ‘the’ can be
used. Otherwise articles are not used
before proper nouns.
 E.g.: He is the Einstein of our
university.

17. Articles
Descriptive geographical names (E.g.: the
High Ranges, the Western Ghats) are
accompanied by ‘the’. Alike when we refer
to college, church, prison, market etc. ‘the’
is used when we consider them as
buildings; if we refer them as institutions,
‘the’ is not used.

18. Articles
If an adjective is used as noun to refer to a
class (the rich, the poor), ‘the’ is used.
Another context is when we say the names
of nations. We don’t say the India, the
Egypt etc. but if the name of the country
indicates a federation of states or a group
of islands, ‘the’ is used (the U.K., the USA,
the Czech Republic, the Bahamas).