The English alphabet is made up of 26 letters, and only five of them are vowels. But those five letters are extremely important. There is at least one vowel in almost every word of the English language, and each vowel can have many different sounds, depending on the letters surrounding it. You can learn English vowels very quickly and easily by taking them one at a time.

Familiarize yourself with the five English vowels. They are, in order of where they come in the alphabet: A, E, I, O and U. Practice writing them--both uppercase and lowercase--until you can print any vowel without a visual aid.

Listen to the sound of each vowel individually. Each vowel has a long and short form of pronunciation, and the sound of each can vary significantly. The long form of U, for example, sounds as it does in the words rude and tune--the short version sounds very different and is spoken as it appears in the words cut or gun.

If you are unsure, there are Internet sites that pronounce and playback the sounds and forms of the vowels to you; for example, fonetiks.org does this loudly and clearly using word examples.

Practice pronouncing the vowels yourself by using Teacher Joe's video at youtube.com. The video takes you through every form of every vowel slowly and clearly. Pause the video after each vowel and word example, then repeat it back to yourself to check you are pronouncing it right.

Think of more words that contain the long and short forms of each vowel; this will help you understand how the vowels are used in everyday conversation. The short form of I, for example, sounds as it appears in the words city and spin. Try to think of other words that contain a short I (for example: click, trim, still and pit).

Help yourself to remember the vowel sounds by writing the vowels and words with different vowel sounds in a table with columns labeled: Vowel, Form and Examples. You can add as many examples as you can think of.