Phonetic Value of English Letters

English spelling is very irregular. As a result, many English letters represent a number of different sounds. Here are examples:

a at, fall, radio, sofa

c cake, cent, indict

e bike, end, karate, latte, talent

f if of

g gate, genre, giraffe, gnat

i hill, kind, rabbit, studio

o carrot, cold, do, of, on, only, woman, women

s his, so, sugar

u lettuce, push, student, universe, up

y city, sky, you

Number of Phonetic Values

a (4)

c (3)

e (5)

f (2)

g (4)

i (4)

o (8)

s (3)

u (5)

y (3)

The letter o has many phonetic values. In certain cases letters have no phonetic value. This is often the case with word-final e in words such as cake. The list illustrates that English letters often have many phonetic values.