So far, we have looked at two diphthongs (double vowels). The next is / ʊə /:
Poor / pʊə /
Sure / ʃʊə /
You’re / jʊə /
In the above examples, you may notice that I’ve used some symbols that we haven’t looked at yet. Don’t worry about these, we’ll cover them later. The main thing is to notice that the same sound (in this case / ʊə /) can have very different alphabet spellings.
The vowel sound / ʊə / is an interesting one, because it is slowly dying out in favour of the sound / ͻ: /. This may seem strange because / ʊə / is a diphthong, whilst / ͻ: / is a monophthong. However, although they sound quite different from each other on their own, it can be hard to tell the difference between them when they’re part of spoken words or sentences. To hear the difference, go to:
English Pronunciation – Diphthong - /ʊə/ - 'tour’, ‘pure' and 'cure' - YouTube
English Pronunciation – Long Vowel - /ɔː/ - 'law’, ‘north’ & ‘war’ - YouTube
Despite /ʊə/ becoming a less frequent sound in English, you will still hear it said habitually by many people - so it is useful to learn it. In fact, once you can hear the difference between similar sounds (such as / ʊə / and / ͻ: /) when listening to someone speaking, then you know you are well on your way to being able to accurately write spoken language in phonetic symbols. Eventually, this can help with hearing and writing down different accents too.
Join me tomorrow to discover the joy of the sound / ͻɪ / !
For more information about listening to, watching and practising phonetic symbols and their corresponding sounds, please click here.
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