Vowel Pronunciation Tutorial • IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Vowels

How can you master the pronunciation of any language? The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) vowel chart is the key to acquiring a theoretical framework for understanding the pronunciation of vowels. In this video I will explain in detail how to understand and reproduce the majority of vowel sounds that exist in human languages, and how you can train yourself to master the phonology of any language or dialect or accent.

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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart

00:00 What do these funny symbols mean?
00:20 Thanks to Lingopie for sponsoring this video.
01:40 Human Vocal Tract: Height, Backness, Roundedness
03:21 IPA: The International Phonetic Alphabet
04:00 High/Close Vowels [i y ɯ u]
07:00 Mid Front Vowels [e ɛ]
08:00 Low/Open Vowels [ä, ɑ, ɒ]
10:30 Near-High/Near-Close Front Vowels [ɪ ʏ]
11:24 Cot-Caught Merger
13:00 Phonemic vs Phonetic IPA Transcription
14:20 [a] vs [æ]
17:10 The Full IPA Vowel Chart
18:00 Mid Back Vowels [o ɔ]
21:00 True Mid Vowels [e̞ o̞]
26:00 [ə ʊ], Sonus Medius
28:25 Spanish Applied Ear Training
32:00 French Applied Ear Training
34:00 German Applied Ear Training
35:15 English & Italian Vowel Space & Conclusions

#IPA #linguistics #pronunciation

[polyMATHY_Luke]

Many thanks to my sponsor Lingopie, which uses TV and movies to teach modern languages; Lingopie offers a 7-day free trial and gives a 65% discount on the annual subscriptionsign up at this link:

🦂 Support my work on Patreon:

📚 Luke Ranieri Audiobooks:

🤠 Take my course LATIN UNCOVERED on StoryLearning, including my original Latin adventure novella "Vir Petasātus"

🦂 Sign up for my Latin Pronunciation & Conversation series on Patreon:

[DerMelodist]

This is the kind of material one has to return to multiple times.

[iberius]

A free lesson in phonology by the best American Latinist on YouTube? Count me in.

[Mrs._Fenc]

Something I"ve learnt while conlanging: Vowels don't like being close to each other, so they'll usually have a relative equal distance between each other. You're probably not going to have a language with /ɑ æ a ä ɐ/ and /i/. It's good to keep in mind, because it also helps pronouncing things as well, since things are relatively distant.

[AACSandman]

Me, a portuguese speaker: "These vowels are not nasalized enough!"

[lardgedarkrooster]

I'm generally really bad at reading vowels in IPA and at hearing the smaller differences between them. This video really helped clear a lot of it up. Thank you

[shaorandra]

Because of this video, I went online to check the different IP charts for Standard German from Germany (Bundesdeutsch) and Swiss German dialects (specifically the one from Zurich and Bern). The differences are shown so strongly through those charts. It is so fascinating!
Thank you for that!

[rosacuore]

I couldn’t express how much I appreciate this video, because of the distinguished connection between English language and/ to Italian. My native language is Romanian. For me it’s easier to learn Latin languages than English.
Thank you 🙏 so much!

[StephanusTavilrond]

Amazing video!
One little comment though:
- There are multiple types of rounding: protruded and compressed. Rounded back vowels are usually protruded (a notable exception is the Japanese /u/, which is compressed). Rounded front vowels are typically compressed (a notable exception is /y/ in Swedish though, which is protruded).
- Back unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels tend to be at least somewhat centralized, that is to say, pure back unrounded vowels and pure front rounded vowels are rare.

[larachellin]

As an Italian who spoke Spanish as a foreign language, when I say vowels in Spanish I use the same vowel I would use in Italian, if the word is a cognate of the 2 languages, like perdono->perdon. Now that you pointed out that Italian has 7 vowels and Spanish only 5, (I never realized that)I will pay more attention when I speak. Great lesson, as usual. Thank you

[weirdlanguageguy]

I love these deep dives into phonology, especially in ways that are accessible to people who aren't already familiar with the inner workings of linguistics! I could (and do) spend hours researching the precise realizations of phonemes, but it can be really difficult to explain phonology to the layman. Materials like this are amazing

[MarkRosa]

Luke, it's the second week of university classes here in Tokyo and literally a few hours ago I was teaching the IPA to freshmen in my class on writing systems -- I'd love to show them this video! When we went over vowels, my New York-born self was very careful to make "standard" [ɑ:] and [ɔ:] sounds, though I told them they were free to imitate me next time I said [ɔə] or [ʊə] as we cultured Northeasterners like to do :)

[mikahamari]

Thank you! IPA symbol for *ä* is central vowel, but the letter *ä* used in the ortography for example in Finnish and Estonian represents front vowel *æ*, like in the Finnish word *päättää* 'to decide'. Dots above letter show that it is front vowel, and this convention comes from Swedish and German.

[elisagiordano]

30:02 As an Italian, i’ve always thought that the Spanish e sounded a lot like my close-mid. Now that I’ve found out it’s a true-mid though, i can also perceive it as an open-mid if i focus!
What you said about “perdón” applies to me. There really are some words where i would naturally perceive an open-mid instead of a close-mid due to similarities between the languages.

[Xzor]

Super helpful. Thanks Luke. Add this to "Things they should teach in school, but rarely do".

[justakathings]

Do I know the IPA completely? yes. Am I going to watch this video anyway? *yes*

[ingvarjensen]

I love the IPA alphabet and use it frequently for my job since I'm a news presenter. Unfortunately, even not all of my colleagues have the knowledge to use it. And you even use the different signs [r], [ɾ], [​ʀ] and [ʁ] for the different r-sounds. Who else does this? I'm so excited! I really enjoyed your video once again 🤗

[Uriel]

You are like the only person that takes (Modern) Greek seriously as a language :) Thanks so much <3
And also this video is incredibly enlighting for people who study different languages. I will come back to this a lot!

[thalianero]

As someone who can pronounce both the “American” [æ] and the “British” [æ] the mention of this made me very glad

[georgios_]

A very useful video! For me, being Greek, I can only really "feel" five vowels natively, I can only learn the rest through lots and lots of listening.