Long A Sound
e:(say, pain, make)

English Pronunciation, Lesson 15

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The long A sound (IPA symbol: e) can be found in English words such as: 
pray, may, take, date, weight, gain, and rain.

Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All English Tenses

Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All Tenses




English long A sound
The Long A sound is a long vowel sound. Long vowel sounds are vowel sounds pronounced the same as the name of the letter. Each vowel has a long vowel sound (Long A, Long E, Long I, Long O, Long U).

Watch this video to review all long vowel sounds.



In English, long vowel sounds are usually the easiest vowel sounds to learn.

Now watch this short video to hear the long A sound:



Have you watched it? Good! Let's practice...

Common long A spellings

There are four common ways to spell the long A sound:


1. a / consonant / e

In root words, when you have this pattern

vowel / consonant / e

the vowel is a long vowel sound, and the final "e" is silent.

Say these words out loud (the long A sound is bold):

1) bake

2) rate

3) late

4) ate

5) cake

6) trade

7) made

8) date

9) name

10) grade


2. ai

Say these words out loud (the long A sound is bold):


1) wait

2) pain

3) drain

4) tail

5) stain

6) pail

7) nail

8) snail

9) rain

10) jail


3. ay

Say these words out loud (the long A sound is bold):

1) way

2) say

3) may

4) day

5) lay

6) ray

7) Monday

8) play

9) stay

10) away



4. eigh

Say these words out loud (the long A sound is bold):

1) eight

2) weight

3) neighbor

4) freight

5) eighteen

6) sleigh

7) eighty

8) neighborhood



There are a few other less common spellings of the long A sound. Here are some more long A words. (The long A sounds are in bold.)

1) rein

2) angel

3) Asia

4) apron

5) apricot

6) April

7) radio

8) patient

9) lazy

10) fatal


Now say these sentences out loud (the long A sounds are bold):


1) Stay away from the crazy neighbor!

2) I may travel to Asia in the month of April.

3) She ate eighteen grapes today.

4) Yesterday, I waited in the rain.

5) Did you say you had a date tonight?

7) Nick baked a cake for Thursday.

8) I listen to the radio on my way home from work each day.

9) I am afraid of pain.

10) Please put your name at the top of the paper.

Have you finished them all? Great job! 

great job

Well done! You have completed the long A sound lesson.

Let's move on...

Your next lesson: Lesson 16, P and B sounds (pull, bull)


List of Lessons

Lesson 01: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Lesson 02: Word Stress and Syllables

Lesson 03: Long E sound (meet, see)

Lesson 04: Short I Sound (sit, hit)

Lesson 05: UH Sound (put, foot)

Lesson 06: OO Sound (moon, blue)

Lesson 07: Short E sound (pen, bed)

Lesson 08: Schwa Sound (the, about)

Lesson 09: UR Sound (turn, learn)

Lesson 10: OH Sound (four, store)

Lesson 11: Short A Sound (cat, fat)

Lesson 12: UH Sound (but, luck)

Lesson 13: Soft A Sound (arm, father)

Lesson 14: Long O Sound (boat, know)

Lesson 15: Long A Sound (say, pain, make)

Lesson 16: Short O Sound (not, off, socks)

Lesson 17: Diphthong (a combination of two vowel sounds)

Lesson 18: P Sound (cup, punch, pull) and B sound (cub, bunch, bull)

Lesson 19: The Nasal Sounds (M, N, NG)

Lesson 20: F Sound (four, lift, graph, tough) and V Sound (love, knives, grave, vine)

Lesson 21: W Sound (wow, quit, where)

Lesson 22: R Sound (red, sorry, write)

Lesson 23: H Sound (he, behind, who)

Lesson 24: T Sound (top, it, later) and D Sound (do, had, made)

Lesson 25: S Sound (sit, box, cats) and Z Sound (zip, buzz, boys)

Lesson 26: K Sound (kid, talk, black) and G Sound (go, big, dog)

Lesson 27: L Sound: Light L & Dark L (tall, like, English)

Lesson 28: Y Consonant Sound (yes, you, beyond)

Lesson 29: CH Sound (China, century, watch) and J Sound (Germany, educate , judge)

Lesson 30: TH Consonant Sounds – voiced TH sound (the, father, them) and voiceless (unvoiced) TH sound (think, birthday, south)

Lesson 31: SH (shop, chef, special) and ZH (usual, massage, Asia)

Lesson 32: T and TT Sounds (true T sound, D sound, stop sound, silent T)

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