This video gives you a quick overview of the 12 monophthongs of British English with 5 long and 7 short vowel sounds. Understanding the difference between long and short vowel sounds and being able to hear and pronounce them correctly is really important in English.

There are many words in which this is the only distinguishing feature. For example, ‘live’ (lɪv) and ‘leave’ (li:v ) are almost the same. The only difference is that one has a short, and the other a long vowel sound. These kinds of words are called minimal pairs and English has many of those (e.g. feel vs. fill; fool vs. full, pack vs. park etc.).

In this video you have to read 12 words out loud and identify the vowel sound in each: is it long OR short? Then you are going to hear the word and can listen and check. At the end, there is a bonus word as an extra challenge!