Listen to & Record All the English Sounds - Vowels & consonants

All English Vowel & Consonant Sounds – Voice Recorder and Audio Files

A few things to refresh before you practice all the sounds in English 😁 Remember that English is not a phonetic language. This means that we can’t know exactly how to pronounce a word by looking at the spelling.

Remember that English has over 40 sounds. There are two types of sounds; consonant sounds and vowel sounds and there are 20 vowel sounds – that’s a LOT! You’ll listen to and practice the 3 types of English vowels – long vowels, short vowels and English double / diphthong vowels. 

Listen to each English vowel sound and consonant sound by itself and in words but most importantly record your speech and compare it with the native speaker. LET’S GET STARTED!

PRACTICE ENGLISH CONSONANT SOUNDS

Keep up the great revision you're doing on all the sounds in English - both English vowels and consonants! Listen carefully to each English consonant sound as you make them. You'll see each consonant sound with consonant examples in words.

As you did with vowel sounds, think about the position of your mouth as you make each consonant sound.  

Pay particular attention to English consonant sounds at the ends of words. Non-native speakers (particularly speakers of Asian language) sometimes leave off important end sounds and this results in unclear pronunciation AND it will sound like you have poor grammar, such as past tense and plural endings.  See more on improving your pronunciation of sounds at the ends of English words. 

Another important area for clear English is to pronounce consonant clusters clearly. A consonant clusters is 2 or more consonants in a row, for example 'sks' in 'risks' or the /kst/ in 'sixty'. If you have difficulty with consonant clusters, see our page Practice Consonant Clusters in English. 

Watch a video on English Consonant Sounds and find out more about using the IPA for English Consonant Sounds.

Let's keep going  - see if you can complete the practice for all the examples of vowel and consonant sounds in English. 

Practice all the Consonant Sounds in English. Record yourself and compare. 

A big well done and high-five to you for practising all sounds in English - all vowel and consonant sounds examples given above. Now you will have a better idea of which consonants and vowels in English you find challenging.  

Perhaps you found the length challenging for some of the vowel sounds. Perhaps there were some consonant sounds that you are not confident with. This learning is VERY important first step - the step of building your awareness of how you are making English consonant and vowel sounds. 

I created this page to help people learning English pronunciation and people who want to improve their English accent. You can use the recording tool and information above to listen to, record and practise all the sounds in English - each and every English vowel sound and each and every English consonant sound.

Some of them might be different to what you think!

Listen carefully.  

English has a lot of sounds! Many languages have WAY fewer vowel sounds than English. As a non-native English speaker, it's likely that you have difficulty with some vowel and consonant sounds because they don't exist in your first language.

With the tools above you'll be able to:

- listen to audio of all the English vowel sounds and consonant sounds
- record and check your pronunciation of English vowel sounds and consonant sounds
- revise the IPA International Phonetic Alphabet for each sound
- practise your pronunciation of English vowel and consonant sounds

If you found this page on English consonant and vowel sounds helpful, you might like to check out:

 - more practise and a video on English Vowels IPA Examples.  
 - more practise and a video on English Consonants IPA Examples.
 - improve and practice English word stress & rhythm

For more help with speaking English more clearly, or speaking English more like a native speaker, join one of our full, tailored online courses. See our English Pronunciation Course List. 

Our online courses will help you speak clearer English and will give you the practise you need to correct your English vowel and consonant sounds. You'll master English word stress, sentence stress, weak vowels and all areas of English pronunciation with Speech Active. Our courses are tailored specifically for speakers of your first language.

Thanks for making the most out of this page on listening to and pronouncing all the English sounds.  Now you know more about the different types of all the sounds in English - vowels and consonants. We hope that this practice page has helped you improve your pronunciation and articulation of English vowel and consonant sounds!  It's a good idea to repeat the listen and repeat exercises for each vowel and consonant sound above. Each time you repeat it, you'll improve your awareness and listening skills.  

Keep up the great work!

x

Georgie and the Speech Active Team