The Shocking Truth About Long And Short English Vowels – American English Pronunciation

Everyone has heard about long and short vowels, and that the length of vowels is very important in English. But you know that already, right? What you probably don't know is that you may have learned it the wrong way.

In this video, we're going to address common misunderstandings about the length of vowels and discuss essential rules to help you improve your pronunciation.

• Do you know that there are no such things as the "long vowel 'A' and the short vowel 'A' in phonetics?
• By the way, the vowel length symbol doesn't always mean that you need to pronounce a longer vowel.
• All this doesn't mean that all American vowels have the same length. No, they don't. And there's a rule for this, but it's a secret ;). You have to watch this video to find out.

By the way, we have a website: https://soundsamerican.net/

Quick Links:
• Intro 00:00
• Vowel Length Symbol: 00:55
• Long 'A' – Short 'A' : 04:12
• Misconceptions Cleared Up, Summary: 05:29
• Vowel Length Rule: 06:04
• Tense and Relaxed Vowel Sounds: 07:46
• Pronunciation Exercise: 08:37
• Quiz: 11:30

Related Videos:
► Pronunciation of Vowel Sounds (Playlist)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYJV5Moz9cfzjvOs8X4dOSrpMGHZL9mSo
►Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary
►Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/
► Interactive Vowel Sounds Chart: American English Pronunciation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EdRAfOMfnU

[THIS VIDEO HAS ENGLISH, JAPANESE, CHINESE, VIETNAMESE, PORTUGUESE, AND RUSSIAN SUBTITLES]
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Hello there! This is the "Sounds American" channel.
In this video, we're going to discuss common misunderstandings about the length of vowels and the essential rules for their pronunciation.
Since you're watching this video, you've probably heard about long and short English vowels before, haven't you?
Beware, after watching this video, your life will never be the same. Keep calm and embrace it. For those who haven't heard about them, don't worry, - your life won't be the same either.

There's a lot of confusion and misconceptions about the length of English vowels. To be honest, it seems like a big mess.
Let's clear things up.
Number one.
We'll start with something that you can find in many English dictionaries: the Vowel Length symbol.
Take a look at this example.
Here's the word "leaf" and it's transcription: /li:f/.
Have you noticed this symbol?
This symbol is used to denote a long vowel sound. In this case, it's the vowel sound /i:/. As opposed to the short vowel sound /ɪ/, as in the word "live."
Take a look:
Let's check and compare the actual lengths of these two vowels.
Here are the recordings from the Longman online dictionary. Listen to these words very carefully.
Which vowel sound do you think is longer? The one in the word on the left or the one in the word on the right? We know, it may be hard to tell. Let's try again...
You know, we trust technology more than our ears. So, we measured the lengths.
The measurements tell us that the so-called "long" /i:/ in "leaf" is approximately the same length as the /ɪ/ in "live."
As it turns out, the "long" /i:/ isn't that long, right?

[Pronunciation exercise]
• half
• have
• leaf
• leave
• safe
• save
• surface
• service
• base
• bathe
• bat
• bad
• duck
• dug
• leak
• league
• peck
• peg
• cup
• cub
• rip
• rib
• bus
• buzz
• price
• prize
• race
• raise
• batch
• badge