“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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R movement vowels video