Theme: the phonetikal status of monophongs and diphthongoids plan

Sounds by Letters
The following chart identifies the most common vowel sounds that each letter or letter combination represents in English. Notice that some letters represent more than one sound while a few letters represent only one sound.

• 
  a: [ei] [æ] [ə]/[ʌ] [ɑ]
  
• 
  ai: [ei] [ɑi]
  
• 
  au: [ɔ]
  
• 
  e: [i] [ɨ] [ɛ] [ə]
  
• 
  ea: [i] [ɨ]
  
• 
  ee: [i] [ɨ]
  
• 
  ei: [ei] [i] [ɨ]
  
• 
  ey: [i] [ɑi] [ei]
  
• 
  i: [ɪ] [ɑi] [ə]
  
• 
  ie: [ɑi]
  
• 
  o: [oʊ] [ɑ] [ə]
  
• 
  oa: [oʊ]
  
• 
  oi: [oɪ]
  
• 
  oo: [u] [ʊ]
  
• 
  ou: [ʊ] [ɔ] [ɑʊ]
  
• 
  ow: [ɑʊ]
  
• 
  oy: [oɪ]
  
• 
  u: [u] [ə]/[ʌ] [ɨ] [iu]
  
• 
  uy: [ɑi]
  
• 
  y: [i] [ɨ] [ɑi]
  

Letters by Sounds
The following chart identifies the most common letters and letter combinations that each vowel or diphthong is represented by in English. Notice that some sounds are represented by more than one letter while a few sounds are represented by only one letter.

• 
  [i]: e, ea, ee, ei, ey, y
  
• 
  [ɪ]: I
  
• 
  [ɛ]: e
  
• 
  [æ]: a
  
• 
  [ɨ]: e, ea, ee, ei, i, u
  
• 
  [ə]/[ʌ]: a, e, i, o, u
  
• 
  [ɑ]: a, o
  
• 
  [ɔ]: au, ou
  
• 
  [ʊ]: oo, ou
  
• 
  [u]: oo, u
  
• 
  [ie]: u
  
• 
  [ɑi]: ai, ey, i, ie, uy, y
  
• 
  [ei]: a, ai, ei, ey
  
• 
  [oʊ]: o, oa
  
• 
  [ɑʊ] : ou, ow
  
• 
  [oɪ]: oi, oy
  

The English language has ten monophthongs and six diphthongs but only six vowel letters.

Vowel sounds are an especially tricky part of English pronunciation because of how flexible and malleable they can be. While consonant sounds are fairly uniform throughout various dialects, vowel sounds can have slight variations in pronunciation from one region to another.

Another aspect of vowel sounds that can be confusing is when multiple vowel sounds blend together within a single syllable. Because there are no clear divisions between the sounds like there are for consonants, these blended vowel sounds can be difficult to pronounce correctly. In this section, we’ll look at the three ranges of vowel sounds: monophthongs (single vowel sounds within a syllable), diphthongs (two vowels sounds combined within a syllable), and triphthongs (three vowels sounds combined within a syllable).

Monophthongs
The most basic vowel sound is known as a monophthong (pronounced /ˈmɑnəfˌθɑŋ/). As the prefix “mono-” suggests, a monophthong is a single sound (to which the root “-phthong” refers) within a single syllable. Most of these are short vowels, though there are some long vowel monophthongs as well.