How many phonemes are in the word football? I think there is two but I'm not sure.
http://www.answers.com/phoneme
I think there are 6. What do you think?
To determine the number of phonemes in a word, you need to understand what phonemes are and how they are different from letters.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that can change the meaning of a word. They are abstract representations of sounds, and each language has its own set of phonemes. In English, there are approximately 44 phonemes, but the exact number can vary depending on regional accents.
Now, let's analyze the word "football" to count the number of phonemes:
1. Start by breaking down the word into individual sounds. "Football" is composed of two syllables: "foot" and "ball."
2. Analyze each syllable separately. In the first syllable, "foot," we have three phonemes represented by the four letters: /f/, /ʊ/, and /t/. The phoneme /ʊ/ represents the "oo" sound, as in "book" or "look."
3. Moving to the second syllable, "ball," we have four phonemes, namely: /b/, /ɔ/, /l/, and /l/. The phoneme /ɔ/ represents the "aw" sound, as in "law" or "saw."
Therefore, the word "football" has seven phonemes in total: /f/, /ʊ/, /t/, /b/, /ɔ/, /l/, and /l/.
It's important to note that phonemes are not directly related to the number of letters in a word. In this case, the word "football" has two syllables and eight letters, but it contains seven phonemes.