English has twelve vowel
sounds. In the table above they are divided into seven short and
five long vowels. An
alternative way of organizing them is according to where (in the mouth) they
are produced. This method allows us to describe them as front,
central and back. We
can qualify them further by how high the tongue and lower jaw are when we make
these vowel sounds, and by whether our lips are rounded or spread, and finally
by whether they are short or long. This
scheme shows the following arrangement:
