Common Sounds For Each Letter

Vowels-- A , E, I, O, & U-- have long, short, and ‘r’-controlled sounds, as well as the ‘schwa’ sound for unaccented syllables. For more information on vowel sounds, including vowel combinations (digraphs, in which the combination has a different sound than either individual letter would have in the same location in a word.

 

A

Long A: ate, day, plain, plane, say

Short A: at, class, plan, sad

B

bank, bed, boat, bubble, by, double, number, verb

Sometimes ‘b’ is silent, especially after ‘m’ or before ‘t’: comb, debt, doubt, dumb, lamb, numb, thumb.

C

cab, call, cat, coin, colony, cube, cut, lick, sack

cent, celery, certain, cipher, fascinate, lice, race.

C has a hard (‘k’)sound before ‘a,’ ‘o,’ & ’u,’ (or when followed by ‘k’), anda soft (‘s’) sound before ‘e’ or ‘i.’

For CH see Consonant Digraph Sounds (link just above the alphabet list.)

D

dad, dead, decided, said, tried

D makes a ‘t’ sound after certain (unvoiced) consonants: baked, hoped, fixed, guessed, washed.

E

Long E: complete, meaning, peel, sweet, three

Short E: address, desk, exit, pen, red, seven

Silent E (makes the preceding vowel long): close, cube, like, name, take.

F

face, feel, fluffy, free, puff.

(For the F sound, see also GH & PH on the Consonant Digraph Sounds page.)

G

G makes a hard ‘G’ sound before A, O, & U, as well as before L & R and at the middle and end of words: drug, game, gave, glass, glitter, gold, got, grass, great, rag, seagull, segment.

It usually makes a soft ‘J’ sound before E or I:generous, genetic, ginger, gist.

Exceptions include the hard G of get, girl, and give. (See also GH, Consonant Digraph Sounds.)

H

hair, half, help, hero, hit, home.

An initial ‘h’ is often silent, (depending on its derivation: the language it came from): herb, honest, honor.

See also CH, GH, PH, SH, TH, and WH in Consonant Digraph Sounds.

I

Long I: five, nine, right, write.

Short I:in, pill, sick, six.

J

J is usually pronounced /dʒ/ in English: jam, John, juice.

For more J sounds see G.

K

back, bake, keep, kind, kiss, make, rack, truck.

At the beginning of words, we usually use K before E or I, and we use C for the /k/ sound before A, O, or U.

At the end of words the K sound is often written CK (to keep the preceding vowel clearly ‘short.’)

For KN see Consonant Digraph Sounds.

L

all, lake, lack, light, lily, listen, love, silent, still.

M

am, make, mine, moment, some.

N

any, man, name, nine, none, turn.

For the N sound see also KN in Consonant Digraph Sounds. (See also the NG digraph.)

O

Long O: alone, boat, bone, cold, no, note, open, own, rose.

Short O: dog, drop, hot, mop, not, on, stop.

P

apple, pay, pen, pie, place, pretty, top, wrap.

(See also PH in Consonant Digraph Sounds.)

Q

(sounds like 'kw'): quantity, queen, quit, quite.

(See QU in Consonant Digraph Sounds.)

R

air, arm, baker, bird, charge, fur, hear, or, ran, red, rose, service, turn.

S

backs, glasses, maps, mats, pots, say, sell, sold.

See also Z (which is the sound S makes after a voiced consonant like B, D, G, L, or R) and see SH in Consonant Digraph Sounds.

T

at, met, pot, tall, test, taught.

See also TH and TION in Consonant Digraph Sounds.

U

Long U: cube, tube, mute, use.

Short U: cup, tub, under, up, us.

(See QU in Consonant Digraph Sounds.)

V

give, leave, love, value, very, visit, voice.

W

want, water, week, wife, will, wood, word.

W is silent in many words beginning WR: wrap, wreck, write, wrong.

See WH in Consonant Digraph Sounds. (Also see the AW, EW, and OW digraphs in English vowels, in which the W takes the place of U: awful, saw, new, brown, cow, grow, show.)

X

X usually makes the sound /ks/: box, excited, six, toxic.

Y

Y makes the International Phonetic Alphabet /j/ sound: year, yellow, yes, yet, you, young.

It can also serve as a vowel, taking the place of I, either as /ɪ/: mystery,

or /aɪ/ : cry, dry, fly, my, sky, try, type, or why,

or /iː/, especially at the end of multi-syllable words: any, carry, city, easy, lonely, sorry, study or very,

It is also part of the AY and OY vowel digraphs in play, say, way,

boy and destroy.

Z

buzz, fuzzy, zero, zoo.

(Many times S, especially in plurals, makes the /z/ sound: boys, news, noise.)

Read more »