Articulatory Phonetics & English Phonology Lagos & Bittner 2006

ENGLISH MONOPHTHONGS CHART

(revised to 2017)

Short Vowels (Lax)

 fish, ship
ɛ dress, bed
 bad, man
 about, comma
 buddy, blood, colour
 (RP) lot, odd, body
 foot, good
* While there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid front unrounded vowel
between close-mid [e] and open-mid [ɛ], it is normally written ⟨e⟩. If precision is required, diacritics may be used, such as ⟨ ⟩ or ⟨ɛ⟩
(the former, indicating lowering, being more common).

Long Vowels (Tense)

 fleece, sea
ɜ nurse, word
 start, father
 thought, law, north, war
 goose, two
Articulatory Phonetics & English Phonology Lagos & Bittner 2006

ENGLISH DIPHTHONGS CHART

(revised to 2014)

Centring ending in / 

 near, here
 square, fair
 cure, jury, poor

Closing ending in / 

 face, day
 price, high
 choice, boy

Closing ending in / 

 goat, show
 mouth, now

a
 Articulatory Phonetics & English Phonology Lagos & Bittner 2006

ENGLISH TRIPHTHONGS CHART

(revised to 2014)

DIPHTHONGS

centring closing

ending in / ending in // ending in //

// // // // // // // //

The triphthongs can be looked on as being composed of the five closing diphthongs with
// added on the end. Thus we get:

= = /

= = /
= / 

*Tak n from P t r Roach’s English Phon tics and Phonology, a practical cours . 2nd Edition (1991)

Closing ending in / 

 layer, player
 liar, fire
 loyal, royal

Closing ending in / 

 lower, mower
 power, hour