PHONETICS: /e/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /e/ corresponds to the monophthong vowel sound in words like "net" and "head". It is called a short vowel. 

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /e/ include the following:

• with "e": bed - bred - get - lent - red - sent - ten - went;
• with "ea": bread - breath - dead - dealt - death - feather - head - health - lead - leather - meant - measure - pleasure - read - spread - sweat - thread - threat - treasure - wealth;
• others: again - any - many - ate - friend - leisure - said - says;
• homophones: bread/bred - lead/led - leant/lent - read/red - sent/cent/scent - weather/whether.

While /e/ is virtually the same as the Spanish letter "e", many Spanish speakers have difficulty remembering that many other words with different spellings may also have the same pronunciation in English.

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PHONETICS: /ʌ/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /ʌ/ corresponds to the monophthong vowel sound in words like "nut" and "bus". It is called a short vowel. 

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /ʌ/ include the following:

• with "u": bun - bus - but - butter - cut - fun - gun - London - luck - run - lunch - summer - sun - Sunday - thunder - truck - tunnel - under - up - us;
• with "o": another - brother - come - company - cover - done - does - front - love - lover - Monday - money - mother - once - other - stomach - wonder;
• with "oo": blood - flood;
• with "ou": country - couple - cousin - double - trouble;
• with "ough": enough - rough - tough;
• homophones: one/won - some/sum - son/sun

While /ʌ/ is very similar the Spanish letter "a", it is in fact somewhat shorter and many Spanish speakers have difficulty distinguishing between "hungry" and "angry". Another difficulty is remembering that there are many common words with the letter "o" pronounced /ʌ/. 

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PHONETICS: /æ/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /æ/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "hat" and "brand". It is called a short vowel. 

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /æ/ include the following:

• act - add - and - ankle - band - bad - bat - can - hand - land - man - sad - stand;
• homophones: band/banned.

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PHONETICS: /I/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /I/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "sit" and "English". It is called a short vowel.

Some common words which practice this pronunciation include the following:

• with "i": bit - fit - hit - sing - sit - thick - thin - thing - think - this - with;
• with "e": England - English - women;
• with "qu": liquid – quick;
• others: biscuit - busy - circuit - minute - village.

While /I/ is similar to the Spanish letter "i", it is actually slightly shorter, and some Spanish speakers may have difficulty distinguishing between the vowel sound in "sin" and that of /i:/, as in "seen", which is longer than the Spanish "i".

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