Every vowel of standard American English on one chart, placed where the tongue is when you say it. Tap a vowel to hear it and to see how to make it, how it is spelled and which neighbour it gets confused with.
Tense can end a word
Lax needs a consonant after
Diphthong glides along the arrow
Schwa unstressed only
Pairs to drill
Positions are typical targets on the standard IPA vowel quadrilateral, and real speakers vary around them. /ɝ/ and /ə/ share nearly the same tongue position and are drawn side by side. The chart is vector, so it stays sharp at any zoom.
All vowels at a glance
Before r
/ɪr/near, here, beer
/ɛr/square, care, hair. Mary, marry and merry all sound the same.
/ɑr/start, car, heart
/ɔr/north, force, four. The vowel is close to the start of /oʊ/, so born is not barn, even with the merger.
/ʊr/cure, tour. Often replaced by /ɝ/ (sure) or /ɔr/ (poor).
These are chart vowels followed by r, so there is nothing new to learn beyond the r itself.
Spelling: long and short
Long is vowel + consonant + silent e: mate, Pete, bite, hope, cute.
Short is vowel + a consonant that closes the syllable: mat, pet, bit, hop, cut.
Before a suffix, a double consonant keeps the vowel short (hopping) and a single one makes it long (hoping).
It is a rule of thumb. Have, give, love, done and come all break it.
Three habits that help
Lengthen vowels before voiced consonants.Bead is clearly longer than beat, and that length is how listeners hear d against t.
Reduce unstressed vowels to schwa.Banana is /bəˈnænə/, with only one full vowel.
/æ/ before n or m glides toward [eə].Man and can sound a little like "meh-an". Typical, and optional.