Phonemes

Front

What is a phoneme?

Back

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another.

Front

How many phonemes are there in the English language?

Back

There are approximately 44 phonemes in the English language.

Front

What is a grapheme?

Back

A grapheme is the smallest unit of a writing system of any given language, which can be a letter or a group of letters.

Front

What is the relationship between phonemes and graphemes?

Back

Phonemes are the sounds of a language, while graphemes are the letters or groups of letters that represent those sounds in writing.

Front

What does the phoneme /b/ represent?

Back

The phoneme /b/ represents the voiced bilabial plosive sound, as in the word 'bat'.

Front

What does the phoneme /d/ represent?

Back

The phoneme /d/ represents the voiced alveolar plosive sound, as in the word 'dog'.

Front

What is an example of a minimal pair?

Back

'bat' and 'pat' are minimal pairs because they differ by only one phoneme (/b/ vs /p/).

Front

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?

Back

The IPA is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet, used to represent the sounds of spoken language.

Front

What does the phoneme /ʌ/ represent?

Back

The phoneme /ʌ/ represents the open-mid back unrounded vowel sound, as in the word 'cup'.

Front

What is a diphthong?

Back

A diphthong is a complex vowel sound that begins with one vowel sound and glides into another within the same syllable.