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phoneme
the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a word. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English
(the number varies depending on the accent). A phoneme may have variant pronunciations in
different positions; but these do not affect meaning. Phonemes are usually written between / /
slashes e.g. the first and last sounds in the word ‘li/tt/le’ are variants of the phoneme l. A phoneme
may be represented by one, two, three or four letters. The following words end in the same
phoneme (with the corresponding letters underlined): t/o/, sh/oe/, thr/ough/. Phonemes within
words can be manipulated orally to blend, delete, isolate, segment and count, and substitute.the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a word. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English
(the number varies depending on the accent). A phoneme may have variant pronunciations in
different positions; but these do not affect meaning. Phonemes are usually written between / /
slashes e.g. the first and last sounds in the word ‘li/tt/le’ are variants of the phoneme l. A phoneme
may be represented by one, two, three or four letters. The following words end in the same
phoneme (with the corresponding letters underlined): t/o/, sh/oe/, thr/ough/. Phonemes within
words can be manipulated orally to blend, delete, isolate, segment and count, and substitute.
- Part of Speech: noun
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