sounds of word you and letter U

First, does word you rhyme with word too because the pronunciation of word you consists of a consonant sound /y/ and a vowel sound /oo/ and that of word too consists of a consonant sound /t/ and a vowel sound /oo/? And second, is letter U not a pure vowel letter like letter A, E, I or O because the pronunciation of letter U is the same as that of word you?

Yes, "too" and "you" rhyme.

You are confusing how the name of the letter "U" is said with the sound that the letter makes. The sound it makes is a "pure vowel." If we say "true" we do not insert a "y" consonant sound in there.

It is only when we say the name of the letter that we insert a "y" of sorts.

SoothingDave said:

Yes, "too" and "you" rhyme.

You are confusing how the name of the letter "U" is said with the sound that the letter makes. The sound it makes is a "pure vowel." If we say "true" we do not insert a "y" consonant sound in there.

It is only when we say the name of the letter that we insert a "y" of sorts.

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Thank you, SoothingDave.

But, since a "y" is inserted when the name of the letter U is said, is it not that the pronunciation of letter U is not a pure vowel like letter A, E, I or O?

No that is not correct. The vowel sound is pure.

TaiwanPofLee said:

But, since a "y" is inserted when the name of the letter U is said, is it not that the pronunciation of letter U is not a pure vowel like letter A, E, I or O?

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None of the pronunciations of A, E, I, O or U as letters are pure vowels.

Based on what, Ray?

MikeNewYork said:

Based on what, Ray?

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Based on the fact that their pronunciations are something like /eI/, /i/, /aI/, /eU/ and /yoo/ respectively. OK, E is a pure vowel /i/. Three are diphthongs, one has a consonant, and one is a pure vowel, but not the vowel that the letter represents.

The vowel pronunciation of A rhymes with the A in bake, make, stay, lay, etc. The I pronunciation rhymes with the I in like, bite, might, rite, etc. The E vowel pronunciation rhymes with E in be, see, me, lee, etc. The O pronunciation rhymes with the O broke, low, mole, so, etc. U is a little different, but as a vowel we don't pronounce it as you, we pronounce it is as oo. I think they are pure vowel sounds, if anything is a pure vowel sound. For me, sounds are about pronunciation.

That's what I said. Only E, /i/, is a pure vowel.

By 'pure vowel' I mean not consisting of a consonant sound. A, E, I, and O are pure vowels.

And, by 'letter' I mean the alphabetical letter, and 'letter U' is the alphabetical letter U, 'letter A' is the alphabetical letter A, and so on.

I was in the opinion that the alphabetical letter U is pronounced as /iu:/ and the word you is pronounced as /yu:/ and the two pronunciations are not the same.

Correction: "consisting of" in paragraph one should read "containing".

Of course they are. And the actual sound of U is pure also.

TaiwanPofLee said:

By 'pure vowel' I mean not consisting of a consonant sound. A, E, I, and O are pure vowels.

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You need to specify what you mean by "A is a pure vowel". A is a symbol. It can represent a pure vowel. as in 'PASTA'. It can also represent a diphthong /eI/, as in 'TAKE', or /ae/ as in 'BAT'.
U is also a pure vowel if you are talking about sound that the letter makes (when it makes a pure vowel). The phonemes /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, u/ are all pure vowels. There's nothing special about /u/.
If you are talking about the sounds that the names of the letters make, then the answers are as I've given them.

I was, as should have been obvious from my examples, was referring to long vowels. The names of the vowels use the long vowel pronunciation.

TaiwanPofLee, Mike is demonstrably wrong when he says that the vowels in 'bake', 'like', 'broke' are pure vowels. They are all diphthongs, even in AmE. See the following page, which clearly demonstrates the sound of these words in AmE, and note that none of them contains a pure vowel. Pure vowels are monopththongs, and no monophthongs are diphthongs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong

Raymott is using a different set of definitions. Let your ears guide you about the sounds of vowels, not Wikipedia. Ray may call them diphthongs, but the sounds are what the sounds are.

I am expecting a response from SoothingDave to my question in #3, above.

All responses are welcome and appreciated!

There are different ways of pronouncing the letters themselves nowadays. In the UK, children are often taught a more phonetic form than aybeecee, so there's a lot of shifting ground and variation of ideas.

MikeNewYork said:

... but the sounds are what the sounds are.

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The first correct thing you've written in the thread Mike.
The rest of us can admit when we are wrong, eg. as I did when I mistakenly said that none of the letter names are pure vowels. 'E', ie. 'i' is. The rest aren't. Why can't you do it occasionally? You're not helping the students with your desperate clutching on to being right, when you have been shown to be wrong. Who do you think you are fooling?

Your advice to ignore diphthongs and call them pure vowels is disgraceful - utterly unbecoming of a teacher. There's no disgrace in not knowing, but confabulating an excuse to show that you weren't really wrong is so transparent.

The reason I am using different definitions is that the definitions I am using are the right ones. Can you man up and admit that?

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-difference-between-pure-vowels-diphthongs-how-138061
http://www.odlt.org/ballast/pure_vowel.html

Tdol said:

There are different ways of pronouncing the letters themselves nowadays. In the UK, children are often taught a more phonetic form than aybeecee, so there's a lot of shifting ground and variation of ideas.

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That's interesting. How do they deal with letters that have a few differents sounds. Eg. 'a' is /eI/, /a/,/ae/; 'c' is /k/, /s/; 'i' is /eI/, /i/, /I/; etc.? Do they still call it the Ay Bee See?

A schoolchild I spoke to the other day (UK school) said she is learning her "a-buh-kuh". The "a" sounded like the "a" in "bat" and the "b" and "c" were simply the sounds from the first letter of "bat" and "cat" respectively. She did not seem to know the "names" of the letters (ay, bee, see).