I am glad we agree about the sound /w/. That leaves us with the letter <w>. Letters of the alphabet must not be confused with sounds. By convention and for convenience, letters that represent vowel sounds are called vowels and letters that

. You have a problem, but I can suggest little more than practice and concentration; I presume you have a tutor or teacher or acquaintance who can listen to and advise you. I hadn't noticed that Chinese students have much trouble with vowel

I always can't distinguish the pronunciation of some vowels in words,as follows: a pple(vowel 'a' ), e gg(vowel 'e'),b y (vowel 'y'), and feel the pronunciation of the three vowels are NOT different! I have tried to

The use of 'a' or 'an' is based on pronunciation . If a word begins with a vowel sound , you should use 'an'. For example: - an apple - an elephant - an idea - an orange - an umbrella - an hour - an SOS If a word begins

Hi Mathew, Yes, as Mister Micawber says, native English-speakers instinctively know which pronunciation of 'the' to use before a noun (or an adjective + noun), but I can see that it may be a problem for some people learning the language.

The grammer books say 'the' has 2 kinds of pronunciation.I always have a puzzle,when I read a sentence from to right,for example, The apple is red. I first see the word 'The',but I can't affirm its pronunciation.I have to look

Hi. On TV you may not hear the sounds, the tongue-play within the chamber of the mouth and the tiny air stops, etcetera that occur when people speak. You need to be face-to-face with your pronunciation coach. I can well see how you

The word 'the' has the voiced /th/ sound. Before consonants the vowel has a schwa sound so 'the' sounds like th ə, Before vowel sounds the vowel has an /iy/ sound like th ē.

I agree with Jim, and that's the way I pronounce "the". Thuh car, Thee eagle. However, I read somewhere that it's not always so, and something is changing. Do some people always say "thuh", even before vowel sounds? I

I agree with those who say there could be several definitions. Considering letters. Vowels: A E I O U (so W is not included here) Considering sounds. Vowel sounds: all those in the IPA vowel chart. (so W is not included here either.