LET'S GLIDE TOGETHER
By Dr. Antonio J. Recca - UNLa

The pronunciation of English vowels is, by far, one of the most attention attracting matters to all those Romance languages speakers trying to learn English.

This paper is primarily intended for students attending the courses of English Phonetics at Universidad Nacional de Lanús.

The problem I have encountered ever since I started with Phonetics courses is the general and accepted belief that in English we write one way and pronounce the way round. This view has been probably held by many teachers in Argentina and has been passed on from generation to generation of teachers and learners at the same time.

Many students, and learners in general, would be more than surprised to learn that in Spanish we also glide our vowels and that Spanish becomes very difficult to pronounce by non Romance language speakers. We tend to assume that in Spanish we pronounce exactly the same way we write words.

Few of us have never noticed that the ‘e’ in the word ‘pero’ /pero/ is much shorter than the ‘e’ in the word ‘perro’. The same applies for ‘pera’ and ‘perra’, ‘huevo’ and ‘hueso’ and so forth.

More Spanish glides? The vowel ‘i’ in the word ‘inteligente’ /i:nteligente/ has a long ‘i:’ and a short ‘i’. Did you ever notice that? I am sure you DID never notice that.

The letter ‘u’ in the word ‘uva’ /u:va/ is long and a lip-rounded. But the ‘u’ in the word ‘bueno’ is not so lip-rounded.

Rule number one: People who live in glass houses should not throw stones! We write the words ‘hoy quiero queso’ but ‘h’ and both ‘u’ are mute, and final ‘y’ sounds as /i:/ while ‘y’ sounds different in the word ‘yo’. And ‘y’ sounds the same as ‘ll’ as in the word ‘caballo’. How messy is Spanish!

Rule number two: Don´t let your eyes betray your ears.

Rule number three: Sit back and relax. Don't get mad about some exceptional pronunciations such as ‘plait’, ‘quay’, ‘rough’, etc… Exceptions exist even in nature. We can find black cats, grey cats… They are all cats, but in different colours (glides/shades in Phonetics!).

Now, let us glide together the English vowels. Before any gliding exercise, we need to bear in mind what we mean by the word ‘glide’:

Gliding (of sounds) is formed by a movement of the articulating mechanism, a gradual changing sound from one position of speech organs to another –a gentle movement–.

English vowels come from the Roman alphabet, the same as Spanish vowels. And no doubt about it: ‘a’ /ei/, ‘e’ /i/, ‘i’ /ai/, ‘o’ /ou/, ‘u’ /ju:/. But in words, they tend to glide.

a = Glides into six different sound

Car / father

Man / fat

Cake / date (‘e’ at the end of words is used for lengthening the preceding vowel).

Many / any (rare words).

All / fall

Care / fare

e = Glides into five different sounds

Pen / bed

Be / me

Keep / see (notice double ‘ee’ glides into /i:/).

Ernest / walker (glides into Schwa when followed by ‘r’).

Mere / here

i = Glides into four different sounds

Thin / this (short ‘i’).

Dice / rise (see above: use of final ‘e’).

First / thirsty (glides into Schwa when followed by ‘r’).

Fire / dire (glides into Schwa. The vowel sound by itself is /ai/ and a Schwa sound is added).

o = Glides into eight different sounds

Form / born

Hot / not

Go / home

Do / move

Actor / educator (glides into Schwa at the end of words when followed by ‘r’).

Done / love

Foot / root (double ‘o’ glides into lip rounding ‘u:’).

Look / hook (double ‘o’ glides not into a lip rounded ‘u’).

By the way, here's a tip: all words ending in ‘ook’ never lip round except in the word ‘spook’! And also remember these exceptions: ‘blood’, ‘flood’, ‘door’, ‘floor’ and ‘brooch’. You can see a double ‘oo’ but it is pronounced neither /u:/ nor /u/. Don’t be so confused nor worried about these exceptions. Remember that in Spanish we write ‘zanahoria’ and ‘búho’ even though medial ‘h’ is mute!

u = Glides into five different sounds

Full / pull

Tube / muse (see above – use of final ‘e’).

Much / cut

Burst / curse (glides into Schwa when followed by ‘r’).

Sure / cure (glides into Schwa. The letter ‘u’ /ju:/ plus a Schwa).

We will deal with double vowels glides (the misnomers diphthongs/triphthongs) in another paper.