Pronunciation rules for r-syllable letter combinations composed of vowel letter e

R syllable letter combination Pronunciation Example word Example word pronunciation My own example word
ear /ǐr/ hear /hǐr/
/ěr/ bear /běr/
/ər/ learn /lərn/
/är/ heart /härt/
eer /ǐr/ deer /dǐr/
eir /ǐr/ weird /wǐrd/
/ěr/ their /thěr/
ere /ǐr/ here /hǐr/
/ěr/ where /wěr/
er /ǐr/ he·ro /’hǐr-ō/
/ěr/ e ra /’ěr-ə/
/ər/ teach·er /’tē-chər/

Although the pronunciation of the r-syllable letter combination formed by the vowel letter e seems complicated, they have certain rules: first, the pronunciation of these five r-syllable letter combinations can be /ǐr/, such as in the words hear, In deer, weird, here, and he · ro (ǐr); secondly, except for eer, the pronunciation of the other four can be /ěr/, such as in the words bear, their, where and e · ra (ěr); Third, the pronunciation of ear and er can also be /ər/, such as in the words learn and teach · er (ər); fourth, the pronunciation of ear can also be /är/, and the common word is heart (är).

Although the pronunciation of the r-syllable letter combination has certain rules, the pronunciation of each word has no rules to follow. For example, the pronunciation of ear in the words bear and pear (er) is /ěr/, while in dear and The pronunciation in fear (ǐr) is /ǐr/. The good news is that the number of related common words is relatively small, so learning how they are pronounced in specific words and how they are spelled works well.