Eesti täishäälikud. Estonian vowels LETTER SOUND WORDS TO TRY COMMENTS A a (audio) auto, Saaremaa (audio) A sounds always A in Estonian E e ema, Eesti, eesti keel, euro I i isa, president, piim O o onu, poiss, roos, kool U u uks, musi, uus, uss Õ õ õlu, õun, õpilane, õde, rõõmus, õhtu, õnn, õnnelik, või Probably the most difficult vowel for non- Estonians – ďut doŶ’t worry, not even all the Estonians are able to pronounce it - on the island of Saaremaa Õ is pronounced as Ö  Ä ä ämber, tädi, jää, jäätis, jäääär Ö ö öö, töö, öötöö Ü ü üks, tüdruk, müüma, ülikool • You’ve proďaďly ŶotiĐed that there are a lot of douďle letters iŶ EstoŶiaŶ: ŵaa, keel, kool, jää, öö etc. The large amount of double vowels iand diphtongs is what makes Estonian so melodious! Actually, sounds have 3 lengths in Estonian: they can be short, long and overlong. This way it is possible to distinguish between different words or between different forms of the same word. (audio) tema (he, she; short e) – teema (topic, subject, theme; long e) kooli (of the school, gen sg; long o) – kooli (the school, part sg or ill sg, overlong o) Double letters represent long and overlong sounds which means they have to be pronounced accordingly depending on the context. The problem here is that long and overlong sounds are represented by the same spelling (as you might have noticed with the word „kooli“). The words look the same but do not sound the same. We would use them in different sentences: (audio) Minu kooli (long) nimi on Tallinna Reaalkool. My school is called Tallinna Reaalkool. Lähŵe kooli ;overloŶgͿ! Let’s go to sĐhool!