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English pronunciation sounds

English pronunciation sounds

British English pronunciation sounds

Did you know that British English has:

26 letters (A-Z)
✪ 5 vowels
✪ 21 consonants

44 pronunciation sounds
✪ 20 vowels sounds
✪ 24 consonant sounds

We're going to look at each pronunciation sounds in more detail with videos and examples.

What are the 44 pronunciation sounds?

Here are the symbols for the different sounds.

The 44 pronunciation sounds (or phonemes) can be written with phonetic symbols.

We have divided these into vowel sounds and consonant sounds in our phonemic chart.

Our phonemic chart shows the symbols for all of the vowel sounds and consonant sounds in British English.

Just click to enlarge or print!

Learn pronunciation with videos

You can learn all the different sounds with our videos!

Watch the introduction to our English pronunciation sounds course.

Then, we give all of the British English pronunciation sounds in 11 short videos. You can:

  • see each pronunciation symbol (or phoneme);
  • listen to each sound (British English speaker from London);
  • get examples of the different possible spellings.
  • take quizzes to check your understanding.

More videos and English courses

Just click on the buttons below for pronunciation videos about English vowel sounds and English consonant sounds, or to find out more information about our English courses to develop your English pronunciation and fluency.

Spelling v pronunciation

English spelling and British English pronunciation sounds are not as logical as other languages because:

  • most English pronunciation sounds can have more than one spelling
    (e.g. me, three, beach)
    SAME pronunciation sound - DIFFERENT spelling
  • some spellings can have more than one pronunciation sound
    (e.g. egg, he, the)
    SAME spelling - DIFFERENT pronunciation sound
  • some letters in English spellings are silent in pronunciation
    (e.g. the 'k' in knee is silent)
    SILENT letters are not pronounced
  • and some words have pronunciation sounds that are not in the spelling
    (e.g. there is a 'y' sound after the 'n' in new)
    EXTRA sounds are not in the spelling

Practise English pronunciation sounds

We recommend that you watch our videos to listen and repeat the English pronunciation sounds. You can compare the different sounds and practise speaking yourself.

Our examples words and quizzes can help you to develop your English speaking and listening skills and your spelling too.

Develop English fluency

To develop your fluency we recommend English communication practice, because it is better to practise the sounds through conversation.

We offer private English courses in Munich to individual students and groups, and you can request that we focus on English fluency and pronunciation with our British English pronunciation specialists.

Start today!

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