This video is an introduction on the 8 diphthong sounds in English.

They are: /eɪ/ /əʊ/ /ɔɪ/ /eə/ /aɪ/ /aʊ/ /ɪə/ /ʊə/

As you can see, they are a combination of two vowel sounds which transform into one sound (= one phoneme) in a diphthong.

Different from single vowel sounds, which are also called monophthongs, there is always some movement in our speaking apparatus when we produce diphthongs. We ‘move’ from one sound, one position, to the next and link them together. That is also why we sometimes call these sounds ‘gliding sounds’.

In the second half of the video, we are going to look at a very short story about cowboys, a sheriff and some tourists to help us remember these 8 sounds really easily.