The sounds of English

British spoken English is generally reckoned to use 44 sounds, or 'phonemes'. Technically, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference to the meaning of a word. Twenty of these are vowel sounds and 24 are consonant sounds. Many of the sounds (particularly vowel sounds) can vary slightly according to accent, but they are generally consistent within the speech of an individual and recognisable by others who may pronounce them slightly differently.