Skip to content
Spark & Whetstonethe grown-up commons

← The Sounds of English

The Sounds of English

Three short lessons on English as sounds, not letters: about 44 sounds from 26 letters, pairs of words that differ by one sound, and why spelling stopped matching speech.

Spark & Whetstone · sparkwhetstone.org/learn/the-sounds-of-english · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Answers are at the end, so you can try each question first.

Lesson 1. More sounds than letters

English has 26 letters but, depending on the accent, around 44 distinct sounds. Linguists call each one a phoneme: a sound that changes the meaning of a word.

So letters have to team up. Two letters can spell one sound (sh, ch, th, ee), and one letter can spell several sounds (the a in cat, car and cake).

Question. How many sounds are in the word "ship"?

  1. Four
  2. Three
  3. Two

Say it back. In your own words: what is a phoneme?

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Lesson 2. Minimal pairs

Two words that differ by just one sound are called a minimal pair: ship and sheep, bat and pat, thin and tin. They prove that the sound matters, because swapping it changes the word.

Some pairs are hard for speakers of other languages, whose languages do not separate those sounds. That is a difference between sound systems, not a mistake.

Question. Which is a minimal pair?

  1. cat and dog
  2. thin and tin
  3. run and running

Say it back. Say it back: what does a minimal pair prove?

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Lesson 3. Why spelling drifted

English spelling settled down after printing arrived in England in the 1470s. Meanwhile, the long vowels were in the middle of a slow change between about 1400 and 1700, called the Great Vowel Shift.

So many spellings record older sounds. The k in knight was once spoken. No accent today is the "correct" one; every accent is a living version of the same shifting system.

Question. Why does "knight" have a silent k?

  1. The k was once spoken, and the spelling kept it.
  2. It was added to look grand.
  3. It tells you to stress the word.

Say it back. In your own words: why does English spelling not match its sounds?

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

At the table: Count the sounds

Players: two or more people. You'll need: paper and a pencil.

  1. Each person writes five words.
  2. Swap lists and count the sounds in each word, not the letters.
  3. Compare counts and say the words slowly together to settle disagreements.
  4. Find one minimal pair between your two lists.

Answers

  1. Three — ship has three sounds: /sh/ /i/ /p/, spelled with four letters.
  2. thin and tin — thin and tin differ only in their first sound, /th/ against /t/.
  3. The k was once spoken, and the spelling kept it. — The k was pronounced in older English. Spelling fixed it in place before speakers stopped saying it.