Speaking alphabet in English. English letters and their transcription

Learning almost any language begins with learning the alphabet. This pattern continues in the case of English. Therefore, the first thing you should learn is the English alphabet with Russian pronunciation. The English alphabet learns quickly and fits into the head without any problems, and some letters resemble the writing of our relatives, the Russians. Letters are the foundation of any language with the help of which words are built, so knowing the alphabet is simply necessary and the first thing you need to start learning any language is by studying its alphabet. Knowing the pronunciation of letters helps people understand what word has been spoken when asked to spell it - "spell".

How many letters are in the English alphabet?

The English alphabet contains 26 letters. We know that the letters of the English language are divided into vowels and consonants. Of the 26 letters, 5 vowels are A/a hey, E/e [i] and, I/i ay, O/o oy, U/u u, the remaining 21 letters are consonants. Now we will try to analyze them all, which will help to pronounce them without the help of a teacher.

A little history

This English alphabet with Russian pronunciation, as we are used to seeing it, appeared about 1500 years ago. Today there are 26 letters in the alphabet, however, in the past there were significantly more.

In the 6th century, Anglo-Saxon monks of the Christian Church began to adapt the Anglo-Saxon language using Latin characters. At the same time, they encountered various difficulties. For example, in Anglo-Saxon phonetics there were sounds that could not be represented in the Latin alphabet.

A little later, the monks borrowed three runes to complete their transliteration. Among them were the runes:

Р - voiced interdental “z”

Þ - voiceless interdental “s”

Ƿ - “winn” sound, modern “W”

Ligatures, or the letters æ and œ, and the absence of the letters Y and J, are a characteristic feature of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. This is well depicted in the ancient Beowulf manuscript.

It was almost impossible to listen to the early English alphabet with pronunciation, since it still required significant improvement. Over time, due to the influence of Norman writing, the alphabet was radically transformed into something completely new.

So the rune Ƿ was replaced by a double “V” or “VV”. After that, it transformed into the modern “W”. Then, gradually, by the beginning of the 14th century, the alphabet began to take on its modern form.

Interestingly, the famous politician Benjamin Franklin tried to make some improvements in the English alphabet and remove the letters C, Q, J, Y, X and W. He proposed replacing them with other letters, or rather with combinations of them. But this alphabet named after Franklin did not become popular.

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Letters in the English alphabet

The modern alphabet has 26 letters or Letters/Characters. Latin letters became the basis for the creation of the English alphabet. For your information, more than 100 languages ​​in the world are based on the Latin alphabet.

The pronunciation of letters varies in different varieties of English. For example, the last letter Z in classical English sounds like “Zed”, while in American it sounds like “Zee”. However, all teachers strongly recommend learning the classic English alphabet with transcription and Russian pronunciation.

Capital English letters have recently changed a bit. So the letter “A” in the copybook is now written the same way as a small letter. For clarity, we give an example of the old and new samples.

It is interesting that Americans and many British practically do not use cursive. They are just more accustomed to using block letters (you may have already noticed this in various films). Here is an example of printed and cursive handwritten texts.

As a side note, here is an example of calligraphic English.

And this is what doctors write in England and the USA.

The first thing a child needs to know when learning a foreign language is the English alphabet. alphabet quickly and for a long time?

Why does the child have difficulties?

Children often have problems and misunderstandings when learning the English alphabet. The first mistake is cramming. You need to remember: if you want your child to learn all the letters of the language for the rest of his life the first time, then cramming should be excluded from the rule. The most important thing is to make sure that the child enjoys learning the English alphabet. If a child perceives this as a game, then the opportunity to learn the English alphabet in 5 minutes can become a reality.

A child may encounter difficulties in learning the English alphabet also because he will not know why he needs to do it. If the child is very young, your assurances that he will need this in his future adult life may not be understood by him. It is clear to adults that knowledge of foreign languages ​​opens up great opportunities for a person. Your child most likely will not understand this. That's why it's better to turn learning the alphabet into a fun game.

English letters and pronunciation

How to quickly learn the English alphabet? The first thing you need to do to learn the English alphabet is to find the alphabet itself, where in addition to capital letters there will also be lowercase letters, the pronunciation of each letter in Russian, as well as several words in English that begin with a given letter. There are 26 letters in the English language.

Now that we have the English alphabet with and words, we can start studying.

Learning the English alphabet using copybooks

How can a child quickly learn the English alphabet? For everything to work out quickly, the child must have some associations with letters. First, you can draw analogies between the English alphabet and the Russian alphabet, and then show the words that are presented above. These very easy words that the child could have known before (some school programs begin with learning words) will help you learn the English alphabet. How to learn it using these words? You need to open the notebook, take a pen and start writing first a capital letter, then a lowercase letter, and then the words. It is important that the child writes only one letter on each line in the notebook and pronounces it. This method will take the child quite a lot of time (about an hour or two), but a parent will not be needed, writing skills in English will develop, and the alphabet will be remembered for a long time!

If you have copybooks for a foreign language at home, you can use them. Copybooks for young children always include exciting coloring pages, pictures and easy English words.

Learning a foreign alphabet and singing songs

If you notice that your child’s auditory rather than visual memory works better, you are very lucky! On the Internet you can find a lot of audio and video recordings of children singing the English alphabet. Such songs help you learn it very quickly, literally in 5 minutes.

Learn the English alphabet with bright cards

Bright cards with words help you quickly learn the English alphabet. How to learn it with flashcards? Such cards can be bought at any bookstore or children's store, or you can make them yourself with your child, which will take quite a long time, but is very effective. If you bought cards, then the instructions will definitely tell you what to do and how. Learning the English alphabet with a child is quite troublesome this way, but the words and letters will be remembered for a long time.

Typically, cards are divided into letters of the alphabet. On each card one word is written and a picture is drawn that is interconnected with this word. The child can learn these words that begin with the same letter either orally or in writing.

Various alphabet memorization games

In fact, the child must perceive everything as a game in order to remember the English alphabet. How to learn the letters of a foreign language if you constantly sit and cram? For a small child who still has to play and play, this will be quite difficult to do. How to quickly learn the English alphabet - we learned earlier, but how to consolidate the knowledge?

The first game. Write the English alphabet in large letters on paper and cut it into squares. Hand out the cards randomly. The child must assemble a complete alphabet from these cards.

Second game. This is a team game and requires at least two or three children. You pronounce the letter, and the children must form the corresponding letter. This game is very fun and exciting.

Third game. Take two sheets of paper, place one sheet on top of the other in the middle. Write the letter so that its top is written on one sheet of paper and its bottom on the other. Remove the second sheet, only the top part of the letter remains. Ask your child to fill in the missing part.

How to learn the English alphabet with your child? You just need to show a little imagination!

Learn more about what the prime, colon, parentheses, and other symbols mean.

You can look at another version of the English transcription and, if necessary, print or copy it for editing in Microsoft Word
English Transcription

Pronunciation of English sounds.

Pronunciation of English vowels.

The pronunciation of English sounds is presented in Russian letters; you should understand that it is not possible to convey the correct English pronunciation using the Russian alphabet.

• ɑː long, deep
• ʌ short vowel a, as in the Russian word run.
• ɒ = ɔ - short, open about
• ɔː - long o
• zː - long vowel e, as in the Russian word hedgehog.
• æ - open e
• e - like e in the word these
• ə - unclear unstressed sound, similar to e
• iː - long and
• ɪ - short, open and
• ʊ = u - short u, pronounced with a slight rounding of the lips.
• uː - long u pronounced without strong rounding of the lips.

Two-vowel sounds

Pronunciation of English consonants.

• p - p
• b - b
• m - m
• f - f
• v - in
• s - s
• z - z
• t - resembles the Russian sound t, pronounced with the tongue positioned at the gums.
• d - resembles the Russian sound d, pronounced with the tongue positioned at the gums.
• n - resembles the Russian sound n, pronounced with the tongue positioned at the gums.
• l - resembles the Russian sound l, pronounced with the tongue positioned at the gums.
• r is a very hard sound pronounced without vibration of the tongue. Corresponds to the sound r in the word lot
• ʃ - soft Russian sh
• ʒ - soft Russian zh, as in the word yeast.
• tʃ- h
• ʤ - similar to the Russian sound j (voiced ch)
• k - k
• h - inhale, reminiscent of a faintly pronounced x sound
• ju - long yu in the word southern
• je - sound e in the word spruce
• jɔ - sound ё in the word fir-tree
• jʌ - the sound I in the word pit
• j - resembles the Russian sound й before vowels. Occurs in combination with vowels.

English consonant sounds that have no approximate correspondence in Russianː

• w - formed with the help of rounded lips (as in whistling). It looks like a sound uttered with just lips. In translation it is denoted by the letters в or у ː W illiams - Williams, Williams.
• ƞ - Open your mouth slightly and say n without closing your mouth.
• ɵ - Move the slightly spread tip of your tongue between your teeth and pronounce Russian with
• ð - Move the slightly spread tip of your tongue between your teeth and pronounce Russian z

The first thing anyone who wants to master English needs to learn is, of course, the English alphabet. Let's talk about him. Since there is a lot of information, I divided it into sections.

Letters of the English alphabet.

The modern English alphabet has 26 letters (in English, letters are called letters or characters - chars for short). Each letter can be uppercase (uppercase / large) or lowercase (lowercase / small). Latin letters became the basis for the English alphabet.

The exact shape of printed letters depends on the font.

Inscription of letters of the English alphabet.

I highlighted the vowels in red and the consonants in blue.

The sound of the letters of the English alphabet differs in different versions. So the last letter Z in the English pronunciation sounds [zed] /, and in the American one it sounds [zi] /. The British pronounce “zed” because the letter is derived from the Greek letter “Zeta”, which passed into Old French as “zede”, from where it migrated into the English alphabet in the 15th century as “zed”.

Americans pronounce the letter “z” by analogy with the names of other letters: B, C, D, etc. The first American pronunciation of the letter “z” was recorded in Lye's New Spelling Book in 1677. This decision was long disputed, but was completely accepted in 1827 after Webster's publications.

Today, most of those who study the English alphabet also call this letter. Most likely, this trend is explained by the fact that in most songs about the alphabet it is sung, since it is easier to choose a rhyme for this pronunciation option.

• — Now I know my A-B-Cs

• — Next time won’t you sing with me?

But the British are not lagging behind, and today the ending of the song is also widespread

• - Sugar on your bread. Eat it all up before you are dead.

English humor, isn't it?

English alphabet capital letters.

Pay attention to the new trend of writing the capital letter A. Today it is customary to write it the same way as the small letter, although previously it was written similar to the Russian capital A. Here is a variant of the old spelling.

It is worth saying that among those studying the English alphabet in other countries, few people use capital letters. This trend is also emerging in countries where English is their native language. Look at the two handwritten texts. In the first version, ordinary letters are used for writing, connected in a letter in a way that is convenient for the writer. The second version uses capital letters of the English alphabet, of course, with handwriting features.

And here’s what a calligraphically verified version of handwritten English looks like. The written English alphabet looks exquisite.

And this is what English doctors write. Reminds me of something, doesn’t it?

Copybooks of the English alphabet.

I offer you a set of copybooks of the English alphabet. Click to enlarge.

English alphabet in words.

English alphabet with transcription and pronunciation

Vowels of the English alphabet.

There are 6 vowels in the English alphabet. Do not accept saying “vowel letters of the English alphabet”. A letter is an outline of a sound. A vowel or consonant, as well as voiced, hard, soft, hissing, etc., can only be sound. OK, let's move on to the letters of the English alphabet that convey the vowel sound. These are A, E, I, O, Y, U - a total of 6. Each letter can express several sounds.

• [ı:] – long and;
• [ı] – short and;
• [ɜ:] – wide e;
• [ıə] – ie;
• [α:] – long
• [e] - short E

• [əυ] – eu;
• [ɒ] – short o;
• - long y;
• [ʌ] – short a;
• [ᴐ:] – long o.

• – yu;
• [ʌ] – short a;
• [u] – short u.

This is how the vowels of the English alphabet are read. Let's move on to consonants.

Consonants of the English alphabet.

There are 20 consonants in the English alphabet.

History of the English alphabet.

The evolution of the English alphabet is evident over the last 1500 years. Although the modern English alphabet contains 26 letters, there used to be more.

After the 6th century, when Christian monks began transliterating Anglo-Saxon using Latin characters, they encountered some difficulties. Anglo-Saxon contained several sounds that could not be written in Latin. Therefore, the monks borrowed three old runes: ð (interdental voiced з), þ (interdental voiceless s), and Ƿ (uinn, analogous to the modern W). The presence of these runes, ligatures (combinations of letters) æ and œ, as well as the absence of J and Y, is one of the characteristic features of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. Look at the Beowulf manuscript.

Under the influence of the Norman script, the runic character of the English alphabet gradually faded away and the letters ð, þ and Ƿ soon disappeared. Instead of Ƿ, they began to use double V -> VV, which gradually became an independent letter W as a result of the use of printing presses.

How did Y and J join the English alphabet? Y and U are derived from V, as a result of the differentiation of consonants and vowels. J came from I.

With his characteristic ingenuity, Benjamin Franklin tried to improve the English alphabet. He suggested removing c, j, q, w, x, and y, since they could be replaced by other letters. He also suggested adding six letters of his own invention. But Franklin's alphabet did not catch on.

Today, the most common letters in the English alphabet are e, t, a, o. The rarest ones are x, q, z.

If you are just starting to learn English, start learning with the basic topics, which, of course, include English alphabet [ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ ˈalfəbɛt] or the English alphabet. During express training, this topic is often omitted, they say, it will come on its own with time. However, if you do not know the entire list of letters, their pronunciation and writing, nothing will come of your learning process. Therefore, let's look at what the letters of the English alphabet are and how they are used.

But first, let's look at how the English alphabet was formed. It is quite difficult to say exactly when it appeared, but the very first fragments of the English alphabet found date back to the 5th century. Then, to write it, Latin letters were used in combination with runes, and therefore the letters were absolutely not like those used in modern English. Subsequently, however, this alphabet changed, all runes were replaced by Latin letters, the number of which by the 11th century amounted to 23 characters, which were ordered for numerological purposes. After this, the alphabet did not change significantly, but 3 more letters were added to it, which were also used in the creation of the modern alphabet.

English alphabet: composition

It was probably not difficult to calculate how many letters are used in modern English. There are 26 letters in English. They may sound different in different situations, since their pronunciation changes depending on the combinations. In total, there are 44 sounds in the English language. However, each letter has its own standard pronunciation, which is used when learning the alphabet. English letters are written differently from how they are pronounced, and therefore when studying them it is necessary to use transcription to avoid further mistakes. It is also worth noting that each letter of the English alphabet has a serial number. Numerology in English, as in Russian, was created solely for convenience and is not of such importance.

The letter Z in American English is pronounced zee.

Please note that the pronunciation written in Russian letters is approximate. It is impossible to convey the exact English sound using Russian letters. It is indicated here to facilitate learning at the initial stage. However, the transcription option is preferable. If you are not yet very familiar with the sounds, try to listen and imitate native speakers.

English alphabet: frequency of use

All letters in the English alphabet have their own frequency of use. Thus, figures for 2000 show that the most popular letter in the English language is the vowel E. The second most frequently used consonant is the consonant T. It is not so difficult to explain such results. Both of these letters appear in the definite article "the", which is the most commonly used word in the English language. The most unpopular is the letter Z, which is known only for zebra, zip and zigzag.

The other letters are arranged as follows:

This numbered list gives an approximate frequency of occurrence of letters, which means that in any given passage, the frequency of letters may vary depending on the words used in it.

English alphabet: vowels

As you may have noticed, there are only 5 in the English language. These are the letters: A, E, I, O, U. Periodically, the letter Y is added to the list, which can convey both consonant and vowel sounds. By the way, regarding sounds: English vowels can change their sound depending on two aspects:

1. Locations, that is, from adjacent letters
2. Stressed or unstressed

Let's look at similar changes using the letter A as an example:

Some sounds contain a colon. The fact is that English vowel sounds are divided into short and long. Short ones are usually pronounced, but long ones last 2 or even 3 times longer. It is necessary to know the pronunciation of the letter in a word according to this principle, otherwise you can distort your thought. Examples:

Regarding the characteristics of vowels, we can also add that the letter E at the end is usually not pronounced. For example:

In addition, vowel letters can have diphthongs or a combination of two vowel sounds, but in order to avoid too much information, we will consider this issue in a separate topic.

It can be added that vowels, like consonants, do not have diacritics. Such signs include all sorts of dashes, squiggles, wavy lines above and below letters, which are characteristic, for example, of the French or Spanish languages. However, in very rare cases such signs can be used with borrowed words. The most popular among them are:

English alphabet: consonants

The number of consonant letters in the alphabet is 21. Despite the fact that these letters are different from Russian ones, some of them have a similar pronunciation. These include the letters: B, F, G, M, P, S, V, Z. Speaking of similarities with the Russian language, it can also be noted that if English words have a double consonant, it is pronounced with one sound:

In addition to simple letters, English contains digraphs or signs formed using two English letters . These include:

It is worth noting that the letter ch in words borrowed from Greek is pronounced as [k].

The letter ch is also read as the sound [k] in the name Michael, which is very common abroad:

Exception not applicable to the options above:

The combination th is pronounced like “s” and “z” in Russian, only to pronounce them you need to position your tongue correctly. Bite down and then lower it, maintaining the position between your teeth. Now try to pronounce both of these letters.

The digraphs kh and zh are used in English with foreign surnames. Foreign surnames can also often contain the digraph sh, which, however, is also used in ordinary English words.

English alphabet: how to learn

We've sorted out how many letters and how they are used, but how to learn them? In the modern world, this issue is quite easy to solve, because there are a lot of materials for learning English in both printed and electronic versions. However, the choice in favor of electronic material in the case of studying the alphabet will, perhaps, be more correct.

Firstly, the English alphabet is something that one learns very quickly. Once you have mastered it, you will not have to return to this topic again and again, which means that the purchased alphabet books will lie idle on the very top shelves.

Secondly, on the Internet you can find the greatest variety of programs, videos, songs that will help you learn the alphabet in the shortest possible time. Use only one method or combine several at once: hum songs, write each letter on a piece of paper, memorize the sequence of letters in English and the words in which they are used.

That's all. As you can see, there is nothing wrong with the English language. The only thing you may need when studying it is a little patience, seasoned with motivation. Don't think of language as overwhelming, but instead enjoy it.