Is that short or long?

Pronouncing individual sounds correctly is important when speaking, right?

Well yes, but in English the length of the vowel sound is often more critical than the sound itself.

Especially as we usually don’t listen exactly to each other’s words.

Instead, we guess what’s coming based on the context.

Try it out.

Say, “Hello, who are you?” to a friend and most people will answer “Hi, fine thanks, and you?

If the individual sound is not quite right, the listener can mostly cope.

But if the vowel sound is too short or too long, understanding can start to wobble. For instance, which one are you saying here?

I’m living there.

I’m leaving there.

The “i” in “live” is a short vowel sound while the “ea” in “leave” is a long vowel sound.

The same goes in restaurants:

Can I please have some pepper?

Can I please have some paper?

And if you make “these” too short, I’ll hear “this” and still understand your meaning, but it sounds like you don’t know the difference between singular “this” and plural “these”. Probably not the impression you want to make.

How do you know if the vowel is short or long?

Spelling can give clues:

1 vowel (live) vs 2 vowels (leave)
2 consonants (pepper) vs 1 consonant (paper)
vowel+consonant (this) vs vowel+consonant+vowel (these)

But not always: bug/bag, stuff/staff and rice/rise.

So it pays to check in a dictionary.

Of course, individual sounds should be as accurate as possible, especially the problem pair of walk/work:

I walked all weekend.

I worked all weekend.

However most of the time knowing if the vowel is short or long will be more useful.

Do you have any English pronunciation questions? Please get in touch.

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