9 Phonics Diphthongs B

9. Phonics: Diphthongs B The letter clusters “ear, eer, ere, ier, eir, ia, ion” may have / ɪə / as in the words like “ear, deer, here, fierce, tear, weird, aria, onion”. The letter cluster “ear” may have / eə / speech sound as in the words like “bear, pear, tear,…”. The letter cluster “ear” may have / ɜː / speech sound as in the words like “earl, early, earth, word, work,…” It is an exceptional case for the letter cluster “ear” to have / ɑː / speech sound as in the word “heart”. Hence, to remember how the words having the same letter cluster like “ear” are pronounced is through the connection of the words with images in meaningful contexts in the early stage in the buildup of the language store of the targeted language. The letter cluster “ia” may have this diphthong / ɪə / speech sound as in the words like “media, aria, bacteria,…”. The letter cluster “ion” may have the diphthong /ɪə / speech sound as in the words “onion, opinion, million, billion,…”. For the letter cluster “ere” may have the diphthong /ɪə / speech sound as in the words like “here, sphere, mere,…” But in the words like “there, where,…”, they have the diphthong /eə / speech sound. Hence, language exposure in listening and meaningful contexts perhaps is the best way to learn the pronunciation of the targeted language. To prevent the mix-up of the speech sounds, a good knowledge of the vowel and consonant phonemes, of course, helps in the correct articulation of the words at one’s disposal. Do you think so?