English monophthongs and diphtongs

The characteristics of monophthongs

• 
  Monophthongs can be found in any part of a word. However, they are often found in the middle of a word.
  
• 
  You can find monophthongs at the beginning and end of a word. For example, in words like after, and lazy.
  
• 
  Monophthongs are also divided into long and short.
  

Examples of the types of monophthong

Long monophthongs

Long monophthongs are vowels with long pronunciation. There are 5 long vowels:

• 
  /a:/ as in calm.
  
• 
  /u:/ as in cool.
  
• 
  /i:/ as in leap.
  
• 
  /3:/ as in turn.
  
• 
  /ɔ:/ as in all.
  

Short monophthongs

Short monophthongs are vowels with a 'short' sound, which means that they are not extended sounds. Compare the vowel sound in eat and sit for example. The first is long and the second is short. There are 7 short vowels:

• 
  /ɪ/ as in sit.
  
• 
  /ʊ/ as in boot.
  
• 
  /e/ as in bed.
  
• 
  /ə/ as in letter.
  
• 
  /æ/ as in rat.
  
• 
  /ʌ/ as in bus.
  
• 
  /ɒ/ as in pot.
  

Monophthongs and diphthongs
The differences between monophthongs and diphthongs are:

• 
  A monophthong is when there is only one vowel sound in a syllable. A diphthong is the combination of two vowel sounds together.
  
• 
  Monophthongs are transcribed with the International Phonetic Alphabet, with just one symbol, for example [ʊ]. While diphthongs are transcribed with two symbols, for example [aʊ].
  

Diphthongs: The diphthongs differ from the pure vowels (monophthongs) because their articulation involves a glide from one vowel quality to the other. There are eight diphthongs in English and their phonetic symbols indicate the initial and final vowels represented in the articulation.