Front vowels

There are four front monophthongs in English. They are: , , ,  and the diphthongs /, , /.

Note!!! As any other English vowel, the front monophthons are actualized in connected speech by their positional variants: the longest when word final, half long when followed by a voiced consonant and the shortest if it is followed by a voiceless consonant as in  –  – , respectively.

The vowel No 1 // is defined as front, high, narrow, unrounded, long, tense, diphthongized. It is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth, the front of the tongue being raised high in the direction of the hard palate, but not so high as to cause the air stream to produce audible friction. The vowel // is diphthongized since in the production of the vowel the tongue may slightly change its position from a more open and retracted position to closer and more advanced one. The lips are tense, spread or neutral, the opening between the jaws is rather narrow. The soft palate is raised, the vocal cords are in vibration.

As compared with the Ukrainian /і/, the pronunciation of which doesn’t differ much, the English //, though, is more tense. Care should be taken, however, not to make the English // too long before voiceless consonants. The Ukrainian /і/ that resembles the English // most of all is in the words іва, Ігор, ідол, ігри. In case the student replaces the English // by a distinct Ukrainian /и/, he/she should be instructed to give a shade of /і/ to the end of the sound.

Ukrainian learners very often palatalize the English consonants before this and the other front vowels as well as before //. This is a rude, though non-phonemic mistake. Ukrainian learners make this mistake under the influence of their native language, in which a consonant regularly becomes palatalized before the sounds // and /і/. In this case care should be taken not to raise the front of the tongue towards the hard palate during the retention stage in the articulation of the consonant. Thus, to prevent or eliminate palatalization the front part of the tongue must be raised towards the hard palate after the release of the preceding consonant, i.e. just after the articulation of the preceding consonant has been completed. Therefore, learners are recommended to practise the English // with the continuants (i.e., the sounds produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. All vowels and fricatives are called continuants) that can be held on continuously without change in quality: /, , , , , /.

The substitution of the English // by the Ukrainian /и/ or English // is a phonemic mistake since it causes the change of the meaning of the word, for example: seat (місце) – sit (сидіти); feel (відчувати) – fill (наповнювати); feet (ноги) – fit (пасувати); meal (їжа) – mill (млин), etc.

Ukrainian palatalized continuants	English non-palatalized continuants
Ліда /Л’ІДА/	Leader //
Сі (бемоль) /С’І/	See /s/
Мідія /М’ІД’ІЙА/	Media //
Віл /В’ІЛ/	Veal //
Бік /Б’ІК/	Beak /b/
Тік /Т’ІК/	Teak //

The vowel No 2 //

The vowel // is defined as front-retracted, high, broad, unrounded, short, lax. The vowel // is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth cavity, being though slightly retracted. The front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate but as high as for //. The lips are tense, spread or neutral, the opening between the jaws is rather narrow. The soft palate is raised, the vocal cords are in vibration.

As compared with the Ukrainian /и/, in the production of the English // the organs of speech are a bit tenser. The Ukrainian learners often replace the English // by the English // or the Ukrainian /i/. The latter mistake is phonemic, since it either leads to misunderstanding or it hampers understanding, compare: live – leave, bit – beat; lip – leap; dip – deep; rich – reach, ship – sheep, etc. To prevent mistakes in the production of the vowel // the students should be advised to move the tongue slightly backwards, the front of the tongue being kept lower as compared with its position for the English //.

Care should be taken not to palatalize consonants before //, compare:

Ukrainian palatalized continuants	English non-palatalized continuants
Сіті /С’ІТ’І/	City //

The vowel No 3 //

The vowel // is defined as front, mid, narrow, unrounded, short and lax. It is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth cavity. The front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate, but a little less than for production of the English // phoneme. The lips are tense, spread or neutral, the opening between the jaws is rather narrow. The soft palate is raised, the vocal cords are in vibration.

Ukrainian learners very often replace the English // by the Ukrainian /E/ which is less front, or by the English // which is more open. This is a phonemic mistake since it leads on to the change of the meaning of the word or its grammatical form, for instance men // – man //.

To prevent the substitution of // by the English // the front of the tongue should be kept a little higher than for the production of //. Besides the learners may also be advised not to open his mouth too wide, spread their lips a little.

The vowel No 4 //

The vowel // is defined as front, low, or open, broad, unrounded, short and lax. It is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth cavity. The tongue occupies the lowest position possible in the mouth. The front of the tongue is slightly raised, but less high than for the production of //. The lips are neutral, the opening between the jaws is wide. The soft palate is raised, the vocal cords are in vibration.

Ukrainian learners very often replace the English // by the English //. Such a replacement results in the phonemic mistake, for example: sad /sd/– said /sd/, dad /dd/ – dead /dd/, bad /bd/ – bed /bd/, mat /mt/ – met /mt/. To correct this mistake the tongue should be kept lower for // than for the English //. Sometimes the Ukrainian learners substitute the English // by the Ukrainian /e/. To prevent this mistake, the learners should be recommended to open the mouth wider than for the production of the Ukrainian /e/ and give the coloring of /a/ to the beginning of the vowel.

Phoneme No 13 // is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth cavity. During the pronunciation of the nucleus of this diphthong the front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate as for the phoneme No 3 //. Thus the nucleus of the diphthong // is practically the same as for the vowel //, though the opening between the jaws is slightly larger and wider for the nucleus of the diphthong //. Thus, // is front, mid, narrow, unrounded. After completing the nucleus, the front of the tongue glides still higher, moving in the direction of //, though the actual formation of // is not accomplished. During the pronunciation of both the nucleus and the glide the lips are slightly spread. The opening between the jaws is rather narrow, a little wider for the nucleus than for the glide.

Mistakes in the pronunciation of the nucleus consist in replacing the English // by the Ukrainian /E/ which is less front, or by the English // which is more open. Ukrainian learners should remember that the opening between the jaws in the production of the nucleus of the diphthong // is a bit wider than that of for the phoneme No 3 // and a bit narrower than for the phoneme No 4 //. This is a non-phonemic mistake.

Mistakes in the pronunciation of the glide consist in (a) dropping the glide and thus replacing the diphthong by the monophthong //, which is sometimes lengthened /:/. This mistake is phonemic since it may lead on to the change of the meaning of the word, e.g.: /met/ (the Past Simple of meet) instead of mate //. Another mistake in the pronunciation of the glide of the diphthong // lies in replacing the glide // by the Ukrainian phoneme /Й/, e.g. /hЙ/ instead of /h/. To prevent or correct this mistake, the glide movement of the tongue should be stopped before the tongue reaches the position necessary for the production of the sound /Й/. The substitution of the glide // in the diphthong // is also observed in the pronunciation of other -gliding diphthongs, namely: //, //. Thus the advice as for the correction of this mistake in the pronunciation of the glide // in the diphthongs //, // is the same as for the diphthong //.

Phoneme No 15 // is pronounced with the bulk of the tongue in the front part of the mouth cavity but slightly retracted. During the pronunciation of the nucleus of this diphthong the front of the tongue is slightly raised but lower than for //. Thus the nucleus is defined as front, low, broad, unrounded. The nearest Ukrainian approximation of the nucleus of the diphthong // if the Ukrainian word: пай. During the glide the front of the tongue moves higher in the direction of // but without reaching it. The opening between the jaws is rather wide for the production of the nucleus // and much narrow for the glide //.

The Ukrainian learners are apt to replace the nucleus // of the English diphthong // by the fully back phoneme // as in the word /l:t/ instead of /lt/. To correct this mistake, the bulk of the tongue in the pronunciation of the nucleus of this diphthong should be moved to occupy the front retracted position in the mouth cavity.