How to use our Long or Short Vowel Checker
Simply type a word in the text-box above and click the "Check" button.
The results will appear telling you whether the word is a long or short vowel, with explanations, examples and notes.
Then to check another word hit the "reset" button and repeat the process.
Vowel Sounds – The Long and Short of It
Those five, and sometimes six, little characters in the English alphabet can be a great source of confusion when it comes to pronunciation.
In fact, the word pronunciation holds a few examples. I'm talking, of course, about vowels. The ever-so-versatile “a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y” (although y is normally considered a consonant) we learn all about during our earliest school years.
Part of their versatility is due to the fact that they can be pronounced differently, often in words that are spelled alike, and changing the vowel sound can change the meaning of the entire word.
It's quite handy, but can also be frustrating. Let's take a closer look.
What's the Difference Between Long and Short Vowels?
The difference between a “long” vowel sound and a “short” one is fairly simple, and those two terms describe them, more or less.
A “long” vowel takes slightly longer to pronounce, and vice-versa. Now, that's really an over-simplification, so bear with me while I explain.
Starting with “a”, there are two basic ways to pronounce it.
The long version sounds like “ay”, as in the word, “maple”
The short version sounds more like you'd pronounce it in the word, “apple”. There's no great way to spell that sound, but I'm sure you get the gist.
In theory, it takes a little more breath to pronounce the long one, and a little wider mouth. If you're so inclined, take a few minutes to speak a few words and feel the difference for yourself.
The same principle applies to each of the vowels in the set, “ee” vs “eh” and so on. Even that sometime vowel, “y” has two versions, as in “crazy” and “fly”.
There's another pronunciation for some vowels, but we'll look into that a bit later.
Why Do We Need These Differences?
That question may or may not occur to every reader, but if you're among those asking it, the simplest answer is to avoid the need for extra vowels.
There's something of an exception to that rule, too, in what we usually refer to as “special characters”. Just a few examples of those would be “ä”, “ê”, and “æ”. Each of those characters has a specific pronunciation.
Unfortunately, they're difficult to type, and using them means knowing how they're supposed to sound, and I could write an entire course on that. Perhaps there will be another article based on that in the near future.
How do I Know which Sound to Use?
The simplest answer is to use the one that sounds right. One of the great things about our minds is the capacity to reach a reasonable conclusion on such things.
For instance, when you see the word, “shake”, you'll most likely use the long version of the “a” when pronouncing it.
The reason is that to most of us, the short sound just doesn't sound right. There are visual clues in the spelling, as opposed to “shack”.
Now, the fact is, knowledge of those clues doesn't just happen; it's learned.
For many of us, it comes from an education system during our formative years that included something known as “phonics”. The teaching method used word segments called “graphemes” and “phonemes”, that taught us to write/read and speak those segments, respectively.
It's a valuable method that greatly simplified the process, and in turn, became a valuable asset for teachers. There's a good chance that if you're reading this, you've had access to that education at some point.
Phonics is so effective that a teaching aid called “Hooked on Phonics” was developed and has been successfully used by parents to teach their preschool children these important basics for an early boost in their education. It's still in use today, and readily available.
Our Long or Short Vowel Checker above will help you know which words are long or short vowels as well as showing you a breakdown with the vowel rules and patterns it follows.
Breaking the Rules
As I touched on earlier, one of the things the English language is notorious for is breaking its own rules. There's a sizable collection of words in it that have two pronunciations for the same spelling, as well as words that don't sound the way they should, according to their spelling. Are you up for some examples? Of course you are!
Sometimes, there are visual clues from punctuation. That doesn't necessarily mean the choice is easy. Here's an example that stems from an archaic word many of us still use today.
Do you know the difference between “won't” and “wont”? Yes, the obvious difference is, the first example has an apostrophe. It's a contraction of “will not” and that's what it means. The “o” is pronounced with a long sound.
The second is pronounced with a unique sound for “o”, that “falls through the cracks”, so to speak. The word is pronounced something like “waunt”, although it's often mispronounced.
Coincidentally, the meaning of the word is “likely to”. So, “She's wont to use far too many words” means that person writes or speaks with more words than necessary.
Did you spot the irony in that? By just removing the apostrophe, you actually create an antonym of the word “won't”.
Other anomalies include words like “buy” and “by”. Almost all readers will pronounce both of those words identically, though they have very different meanings. That means anyone hearing one of those two words will need to rely on the context of the sentence it's used within to understand the meaning.
For instance, “Let's go by my house.” and “Let's go buy my house.” have distinct meanings that you certainly don't want to confuse.
While there are people who would attempt to use a long “u” sound in the word “buy”, it's a clumsy way to pronounce it, so the words are generally considered homophones, meaning they're spelled differently but sound alike.
We can actually add another homophone to that list: “bye”. You just have to love the English language.
That's a Wrap! Now go test our Long or Short Vowel Checker!
I hope you've found this little tutorial on vowel sounds useful, whether you're learning English as a second language, honing your writing skills, or simply trying to make sense of all the ways you see vowels used. It's far from a complete list, but that would be boring.
Now when you use our Long or Short Vowel Checker, you will understand the reasoning behind what is a long or short vowel.
If you need a more general writing tool that includes word count, sentence count, letter count, etc. check out the tool on our home page.