“R-controlled” vowels consist of a vowel plus the R. These are very difficult for foreign English speakers. You need to move your mouth a lot to say these sounds, so I put them into the category that I call movement vowels.
The “R-controlled” or “R movement” vowels consist of the following pairs:
- Long A + R = AIR: fair, Erin, bear
- Long E + R = EAR: Erie, beer, dear
- Long I + R = IRE: Ireland, hire, wired
- Long O + R = OR: orange, corn, more
- Short a + R = ARE: armor, farm, hard
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