Reading vowels in open and closed syllables. Types of syllables in English in a nutshell

In English, it is customary to distinguish 4 types of syllables:

1. An open syllable ends with a vowel. In English, a syllable followed by a consonant + an unpronounceable final is considered open. "e".
The vowels in this syllable are pronounced the same way as they are called in the alphabet.

2. A closed syllable ends with a consonant. In this type of syllable, vowels convey short sounds.

3. The third type of syllable is a syllable in which a vowel is followed by a letter "r"(at the end of a syllable) or "r"+ consonant. In this syllable, all vowels convey long sounds.

4. The fourth type of syllable is a syllable in which the vowel is followed by the combination "r"+ vowel. In this syllable, all vowels convey long and complex sounds.

Rules for reading vowels in English

To listen, click on the highlighted word.

Features of vowel pronunciation.

1. If a word consists of two or more syllables, namely, it contains two or more vowels, then the letter e at the end of the word is not pronounced. For example: die , mate , bottle .
2. If the word consists of one syllable and ends with a letter e, which in this case will be the only vowel, then the letter e pronounced as in the alphabet. For example: me , he , she .
3. If a word consists of one, two or more syllables and ends in ee, then this combination is always stressed and pronounced as . For example: fee , employee , see.

The open-closed syllable rule affects the pronunciation of vowels in English.
A stressed syllable is called open if it ends in a vowel not followed by a consonant, or if it ends in a consonant followed by another vowel. For example, me, tea, play or ending in a consonant followed by a vowel, as in place, truly, precise.

4. Stressed vowels in an open syllable a, e, u, i, o

a - place , may,play, take
e - fee , me, tea, meter
u - true , truly, plume
u - pure , fuel, due
i - tie , nice, tiny
o[əu] - bone , toe, go

A stressed syllable is called closed if it ends in a consonant that is not followed by a vowel. For example: pot, tip, pattern, doctor, but, sector. All these words have a closed syllable, that is, a syllable that ends in a consonant, as in the words: pot, tip, but; or followed by another consonant, as in: pattern, doctor, sector.

5. Stressed vowels in a closed syllable a, e, u, i, o pronounced as follows:

a [æ] - bag , pattern , flag, exam
e[e] - bed , message , met, pretend
u [Λ] - but , must , button, disgust
i[i] - insist , pin , tip, pistol
o [ɔ] - bottle , prolong , box, lock

There are many exceptions to the rules of open and closed syllables.

6. Vowel a before a consonant s, followed by another consonant reads: pass , master, past.
7. Vowel a before a consonant th pronounced like: father , path, rather.
8. Vowel a before a consonant w in a closed syllable it is pronounced as [ɔ] or [ɔ:]: want , was, wander.
9. Vowel a before l + consonant pronounced [ɔ:]: walk , also, false.
10. Vowels in a closed syllable a, i, y before combination consonant + le pronounced as in an open syllable: title , maple , cycle , table, idle.
11. Vowel o before consonants m, n, th, v pronounced [Λ]: front , some , dove , brother , glove, won, mother, come.
12. The vowel o in words like host , most, post pronounced as in the open syllable [əu].
13. There are also isolated exceptions, such as the words: put , pull, push, where in a closed syllable the vowel u is pronounced [u], or the word give, where in the open syllable the letter i pronounced the same as in closed.
14. Stressed vowel y in an open syllable it is pronounced as: sky , fly, type.
15. Unstressed y at the end of a polysyllabic word it is pronounced as [i]: happy , truly, ferry.
16. In a closed syllable under stress y pronounced as [i]: myth , rhythm, system.

RULES FOR READING CONSONANTS:

Features of the pronunciation of certain letters at the beginning of a word.

The letter at the beginning of a word is not pronounced w, if it is followed by r: wrong , write, wrist.
No letters are pronounced at the beginning of a word g And k, if they are followed by n: knight , knot, gnat, gnaw.
If at the beginning of a word there is a combination wh, then the letter h not pronounced in this combination: what , where, white.
However, if after the combination wh followed by a vowel O, then the letter is not pronounced w, but not h: who , whose, wholesale.

Features of pronouncing certain letters in the middle of a word.

In the middle of a word there is a combination ng pronounced [ŋg]: angry , finger, singer.

Peculiarities of pronouncing certain letter combinations at the end of a word

Unstressed letter combinations at the end of a word er, re, or, unlike drums, is pronounced [ə]: , brisque.

Features of pronouncing certain letters in combination with other letters.

Letter c pronounced as [s] when it comes before letters e, i, or y: cycle , cell, piece, circus, precise, cynic c pronounced as [k]: cat , cut, pack, back, clock.
Letter g pronounced like , if it comes before letters e, i, or y: college , germ, giant, Gipsy, gym, prodigy. In all other cases the letter g pronounced [g]: guest , game, flag, magnetism, saga, plug.
However, there are a number of exceptions to this rule, where, despite the combination with the letters indicated above, the letter g pronounced [g]: give , girl, bagger, finger and others.

Syllable

Syllable- the minimum unit of pronunciation of speech sounds into which you can divide your speech by pauses. The word in speech is divided not into sounds, but into syllables. In speech, it is syllables that are recognized and pronounced. Therefore, with the development of writing among all peoples, syllabic signs first appeared in the alphabets, and only then letters reflecting individual sounds.

The division into syllables is based on the difference in sonority of sounds. A sound that is more sonorous than neighboring sounds is called syllabic and forms a syllable.

A syllable usually has a peak (core) and a periphery. As a core, i.e. The syllabic sound is usually a vowel, and the periphery consists of a non-syllabic sound or several such sounds, usually represented by consonants. But a syllable can consist of only one vowel without any peripherals, e.g. diphthong in English pronouns I“I” or two or more vowels (Italian. vuoi). Peripheral vowels are non-syllabic.

But syllables may not have a vowel, for example, in the patronymic Ivanovna or in the interjections “ks-ks”, “tsss”. Consonants can be syllabic if they are sonants or occur between two consonants. Such syllables are very common in the Czech language: prst“finger” (cf. Old Russian. finger), trh“market” (cf. Russian. bargain), vlk"wolf", srdce, srbsky, Trnka(famous Czech linguist). In a sentence Vlk prchl skrz tvrz(the wolf ran through the fortress) there is not a single vowel. But in examples from the Czech language it is clear that the syllabic consonant is always sonorant.

The division into syllables is explained by different theories that complement each other.

Sonoration theory: in a syllable, the most sonorous sound is the syllabic. Therefore, in order of decreasing sonority, syllabic sounds most often are vowels, sonorant voiced consonants, noisy voiced consonants, and sometimes voiceless consonants (tss).

Dynamic theory: syllabic sound is the strongest, most intense.

Expiratory theory: a syllable is created by one moment of exhalation, a push of exhaled air. The number of syllables in a word is the number of times the candle flame flickers when the word is pronounced. But often the flame behaves contrary to the laws of this theory (for example, with a two-syllable “ay” it will flutter once).

Types of syllables

Open syllable is a syllable ending with a vowel sound, e.g. yeah, oh.

Closed syllable is a syllable ending with a consonant, e.g. hell, mind, cat.

Covered syllable begins with a consonant sound, e.g. glad, pop.

Uncovered syllable starts with a vowel sound: ah, he, ah, really.

In Russian, the syllables are mostly open, while in Japanese almost all are open (Fu-ji-ya-ma, i-ke-ba-na, sa-mu-rai, ha-ra-ki-ri).

There are also cases of extremely closed and covered syllables, for example, splash, English. and fr. strict(strict), German sprichst(you speak), Georgian - msxverpl(victim).

There are languages where the roots and syllables are the same. Such languages are called monosyllabic, e.g. whale. language - typical monosyllabic.

Often in speech it is very difficult to determine the boundary of a syllable.

Rus. They led me by the arm and took my friends away. They beat the viper - they killed the vipers. Palette - half a liter.

English. an ocean - a notion; an aim - a name.

Supersegmental units of language

Sound units of language can be segmental (linear) and supersegmental.

Segmental units- these are sounds (phonemes), syllables, words, etc. Longer language units are divided into shorter segments.

Supersegmental units, or otherwise prosodic(from Greek prosodia- refrain, stress) are layered onto a chain of segments - syllables, words, phrases, sentences. Typical supersegmental units are stress and intonation.

Tact- a group of words united by one stress and separated from each other by a pause.

Proclitic- unstressed syllable before a stressed syllable, e.g. I dat small.

Enclitic- unstressed syllable after a stressed syllable, e.g. znA YuI .

Unstressed words - articles, prepositions, particles - often act as enclitics. Sometimes they pull the emphasis on themselves: “p O d hand."

Thus, the boundaries of words and measures may not coincide.

Accent

Stress (accent) is the emphasis of a sound, syllable, word, group of words.

The three main types of stress are force, quantity and musical.

Power (dynamic) stress is related to the amplitude of the vibrations of the sound wave; the greater the amplitude, the stronger the sound is pronounced.

Quantitative (quantitative) stress is associated with the duration, length of the sound; a stressed syllable has a longer duration than unstressed syllables.

Musical (polytonic) stress is associated with the relative pitch of the tone, with a change in this pitch.

Usually in languages that have stress, all three stresses are intertwined, but one of them predominates and the main type of stress in a particular language is determined by it.

In Russian, force stress, being the main one, is accompanied by the length of the stressed syllable.

In Swedish, musical stress is accompanied by force.

There are languages in which there is no accent at all, for example, in Paleo-Asian languages (Chukchi, etc.).

Languages with force stress as their main ones include Russian, English, French, German, Bashkir, Tat. and many others.

Quantitative stress is not used as the main one and is only used as a component in combination with other types of stress. In some languages, for example Latin, versification is based on the alternation of long and short syllables (which corresponds to stressed and unstressed syllables in Russian versification). Therefore, to the ear of an Italian, accustomed to verses based on dynamic stress, Latin verses are non-rhythmic.

Languages in which musical stress is used widely or plays the role of the main stress primarily include such oriental languages as Chinese (4 tones in the literary dialect, 6 tones in the Hong Kong dialect), Thai (5 tones), Vietnamese (6 tones), etc. In these languages, each syllable has its own tone, and since in these languages, as a rule, a syllable coincides with a word, then each simple word has its own constant tone, which changes only occasionally during word formation.

In China language ma(1) with an even tone means “mother”, ma(2) with a rising tone means "hemp", ma(3) with a descending-rising tone - “horse” and “digit,” ma(4) with a falling tone means “to swear.”

Another example from China. language: verb mai with a falling tone means “to sell”, a mai with a descending-rising tone - “buy”.

An even more amazing example of the distribution of tones in syllables can be found in the south of China in the Cantonese (Hong Kong) dialect, where there are 6 tones (the tones are indicated by numbers): Fu 55 (upper case) - man, husband; Fu 35 (ascending upper case) - to suffer, suffer; Fu 33 (outgoing upper case) - wealth, rich; Fu 21 (flat lowercase) - support, lean; Fu 13 (ascending lower case) - woman; Fu 22 (outgoing lower case) - father, eldest relative.

Japanese has three types of musical stress, but they fall only on stressed syllables, similar to dynamic stress in Russian.

hana (0) pronounced with a low tone on the first syllable and a middle tone on the second means “nose, snot”; hana (1) pronounced with a high tone on the first syllable and a low tone on the second means “beginning, end”; hana (2) pronounced low on the first syllable and high on the second means "flower".

The ancient Greek language also had three types of musical stress. The stressed syllable was pronounced not stronger than the unstressed one, but with a higher tone.

Spicy (lat. acutus) accent with a higher note, e.g. πατηρ [ pate r] - father; heavy stress (lat. gravis) with a lower note, e.g. αρχη [ arche ] - Start; light stress (lat. circumflex) with a combination of acute and heavy stress, for example, σωμα [ so ma] - body.

Of the modern European languages, musical stress (2-3 types) is found in Serbian, Croatian, Latvian, Swedish, but always in combination with the main force stress.

Musical stress can be on a syllable or word.

Syllable stress: China..., Tibetan, Burmese, Siamese (Thai), Vietnamese, Latvian, Serbian.

Word stress: Japanese, Ainu, Tagalog, Malay, Swedish, Norwegian.

There is stress in a word main(or secondary(\), e.g. yellowe zobetO n.

The emphasis in languages can be constant (fixed), i.e. stressed syllables have a permanent place in the word, or free, i.e. not associated with a specific place in the word (tv O horn, creation O G).

One calculation showed that in 444 languages studied, 25% of languages have stress on the initial syllable, 18% on the penultimate syllable, 20% on the final syllable, and 33% of languages have free stress.

Constant stress on the first syllable is characteristic of the Czech, Hungarian, and Latvian languages. Wed. Czech so bota"Saturday" O ta", vo jak"sold" A T"; Hungarian a lma « I block", ba lta"axe".

Constant stress on the penultimate syllable (the second syllable from the end) is inherent in the Polish language, for example. matematy ka, ko ziol"goat".

Most words in Spanish are also stressed on the penultimate syllable, especially those with a final vowel ( si esta).

Constant stress on the last syllable is characteristic of French. languages, Turkic languages (Bash., Tat., etc.), Persian language (Farsi): French. revolutio n, bash., tat. alma (apple), balta (axe), Tehran.

The most typical language with free stress is Russian.

Sometimes stress helps to distinguish the meanings of homographs - words with the same spelling, for example, kr. at zhki - circle And, P O lky - regiment And.

In addition to traditional stress, logical stress can be placed in speech in order to emphasize the significance of a particular part of a sentence or to express additional meaning to the main meaning of the phrase. For example, in A. M. Artaud’s book “The Word Sounds” the following example of logical stress is given:

“Let's take the standard phrase Give me a glass of tea and break it down into its component meanings. If we focus onfirst word , we open the following: “Enough idle chatter! I came tired, thirsty, give me a glass of tea, and then I’ll tell you all the news.” Focus onsecond word : “They gave it to the neighbor on the right, they gave it to the neighbor on the left, they gave it to everyone, they asked everyone, they forgot about me - why is that? Give it to me too, if you give it to everyone...” Onthird word : “You know perfectly well that I don’t drink from a cup, give me a glass. You can respect my habits at least a little!” And finally, onfourth : “Tea! You see - no wine, no coffee! Nothing quenches thirst like good, fragrant tea!”

Intonation

Intonation refers to all prosodic phenomena in syntactic units - phrases and words.

Intonation consists of the following 5 elements, the first two of which are the main components of intonation:

accent;

rate of speech;

First, let's find out what's different open syllable in English from closed and using examples, let's see how to correctly read letters in a particular syllable.

Open syllable in English

If a word ends in a vowel, it is an open syllable.

name - name

my - mine

take - take

You have probably already noticed that in almost all cases, the vowel letter e at the end of a word is silent (not readable). Let's now take a closer look at how to correctly read vowels in an open stressed syllable.

In an open syllable, all vowels are read as in the alphabet. The exception is the letter y. There are 6 vowels in total in the alphabet. Let's look at each of them in the table below.

English vowels and examples of their pronunciation in words

name - name
lake - lake
say - say

As you have already noticed, the last vowel letter in an English word is not readable. It only says that the first vowel in a word should be read as in the alphabet.

be - to be
me - me
settle - bench

In most prepositions we pronounce the last vowel, as in the example with the prepositions be (to be) and me (me).

nice - to be
like - me
line - bench

no - no
nose - nose
go - go, go

mute - mute
tune - tune

my - mine
skype - skype

The vowel y in an English word conveys sound despite the fact that its transcription is .

Closed syllable in English.

If a word ends with a consonant, then it is closed syllable.

pen - pen

good [ɡʊd] - good

sit - sit

Let's look at the rules for reading each vowel separately in closed syllable in English.

English vowels and examples of their pronunciation in a closed syllable

bad - bad
dad - dad
back - back
black - black
flat - apartment

The letter Aa in a closed stressed syllable is read as the sound [æ]. This sound is similar to something between Russian A and E. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound. Practice well before moving on to the next letter.

stop - stop
box - box
from - from, from
shop - store
hot - hot

Letter Oo in a closed stressed syllable is read as the sound [ə]. This sound is similar to the Russian sound O, but in Russian, when we pronounce O, we extend our lips forward; in English, when pronouncing the sound [ə], our lips do not extend forward. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound.

big - big
film - film
milk - milk
sit - sit
fish - fish

The letter Ii in a closed stressed syllable is read as the sound [I]. This sound is similar to the Russian sound I. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound.

best - best
bed - bed
dress - dress
egg - egg
get - receive

The letter Ee in a closed stressed syllable is read as the sound [e]. This sound is similar to the Russian sound E. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound.

cup - cup
sun - sun
run - run
fun - fun
up - up

The letter Uu in a closed stressed syllable is read as the sound [ʌ]. This sound is similar to the Russian A sound, but in English it is more intense. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound.

gym - gym
myth - myth
rhythm - rhythm

The letter Yy in a closed stressed syllable is read the same as the letter Ii. This sound is similar to the Russian sound I. In the examples you can clearly hear how to pronounce this sound.

Useful

A diphthong is when one letter contains two sounds. For example, the letter a has two sounds.

Open closed syllable in English: exercises

Now let's practice a little. Choose which sound is present in the word.

red (red)

black (black)

In an open syllable, the vowel A is pronounced as . Here are examples of words with A in an open syllable: snake - snake (Fig. 2.), lake - lake, plane - plane, plate - plate, name - name.

If the vowel letter A comes before the vowels Y and I, then such combinations AY, AI will be read as. Here are examples of words with such combinations: rain - rain, train - train, tail - tail, wait - wait, sail - sail, May - May, play - play, day - day, way - way. If the vowel letter A is combined with the letters W and L, then the pairs AW and AL are pronounced [ɔː]. Here are examples of such words: ball - ball (Fig. 3.), tall - high, all [ɔːl] - everything, small - small, wall - wall, paw - paw, draw - draw, straw - straw, law - law, flaw - crack.

In a closed syllable, the vowel letter E is read as a short sound [e]. Here are examples of words with E in a closed syllable: pen - pen, red - red, bed - bed, egg - egg, hen - chicken. In an open syllable, the vowel E is pronounced as a long sound. Here are examples of words with E in an open syllable: she [ʃiː] - she, he - he, be - to be, Pete - Pete, we - we.

If there are two vowel letters E next to each other in a word, then this combination EE will be read as a long sound. Here are examples of words with this combination: tree - tree, sweet - candy (Fig. 4.), green - green, meet - to meet, bee - bee.

If the vowel letter E is combined with the letter A, then the pair EA is also pronounced as a long sound. Here are examples of such words: read - to read, please - please, mean - to keep in mind, tea - tea, sea - sea.

So, we got acquainted with the rules for reading the vowels A and E in open and closed syllables, as well as in their combinations.

The vowel letter A is read in two ways. In an open syllable it is read as a sound, for example plane - airplane. In a closed syllable, the vowel letter A is read as the sound [æ], for example flat - apartment.

The vowel letter E in a closed syllable is read as the sound [e], for example red - red, and in an open syllable - as a long sound, for example we - we.

Bibliography

Afanasyeva O.V., Mikheeva I.V. English language. 2nd grade - M: Bustard, 2014.
Biboletova M.Z., Denisenko O.A., Trubaneva N.N. English language. 2nd grade - Title, 2008.
Bykova N.I., Dooley D., Pospelova M.D. and others. English language. 2nd grade - Education, 2013.

Alleng.ru ().
Alleng.ru ().
learnathome.ru ().

Homework

Learn to correctly read all the words from the video lesson.
For each learned rule for reading the vowels A and E, find two English example words.
Learn words from the video lesson and new words that you find.

In this lesson:
Alphabet for letter A
Open and closed syllable

There are many reading rules in the English language, but the most, most, most “basic” are the rules for reading vowels in open and closed syllables.

There is NO need to “learn the rules” of reading separately. You need to learn quite a lot of words - examples of this rule. By memorizing the rules, you remember patterns, which you then notice in unfamiliar words.

Let's go through the dictionary

Once upon a time, it seems like a long time ago, there were no electronic dictionaries. Why, back then there were no computers. The translation of unfamiliar words had to be looked for by leafing through a thick, solid book DICTIONARY. Probably, even now every student of English has a large or not very large English-Russian dictionary, which is called “hardcover”.

It is, of course, easier to look for a translation of a word in the electronic version of the dictionary, but when you hold a book in your hands, you see more words, and it is easier to find words in which a vowel denotes a specific sound. So, let's go through the dictionary and look for patterns.

"Alphabet" for the letter "A"

[x]
ant - ant act act apple - apple	able ace ace
bad - bad bag - bag	baby ["beIbi] child bake bacon ["beIkn] bacon bait bait
camp - camp cat - cat	cable cable cake
daddy - dad dam - dam	date date, date day day daisy ["deIzI] daisy danger ["deInGq] danger
enamel enamel embarrass to embarrass	enable promote embrace
fan - fan, fan fact fact fax fax	face face fame fake - fake, counterfeit
gas - gas ganster - ganster	game game gate
hat - hat hand - hand	hate
jam ["Gxm] - jam, jam jaguar ["Gxgjq] jaguar	Jane -Jane jail ["GeIl] prison
lamp - lamp	lady ["leIdI] - lady, lady
mad - crazy	make - do, produce
narrow ["nxrqV] narrow	name - name, call
pack pack, flock	pale - pale
rat - rat	radio ["reIdiqV] radio
sad - sad	safe safe
tank tank	take

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Open and closed syllable

This table does not contain words for all letters of the alphabet, but this is enough. As you can see, in English there are a lot of short words like

hat is a closed syllable - after the letter a there is one consonant and nothing else.

hate is an open syllable - after the letter a there is one consonant and a “silent” letter e (it is not pronounced).

Using such examples, the rules for reading vowels in open and closed (stressed!) syllables are the easiest to remember. So,

In an open stressed syllable, vowels are read in the same way as they are called (as in the alphabet), i.e. This is alphabetical reading.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Even this “simple” rule does not apply to all words. To read a vowel letter it is important what letters exactly? stand in front of her and behind her. Therefore, the letter a can also be read as [L] or [R]. But more on that in the next lesson.
In the meantime, try to remember the words from the table above and
transcription signs [x] and .
More: