One of the conventions used to teach Latin is the use of macrons. Macrons are horizontal marks put above vowels to indicate that the vowel is long. The Romans never used macrons this way, nor does modern Latin literature. Macrons really only exist inside of an educational setting. Despite the fact that Latin is taught as a written language rather than a conversational language, research shows that it is important to learn how to pronounce Latin before you can learn the language itself. Therein lies the importance of learning, understanding, and using macrons. Below we see a list of the Latin vowels, short and long, and their pronunciations.
- a (short a) - uh, like about
- ā (long a) - ah, like father
- e (short a) - eh, like pet
- ē (long a) - ey, like they
- i (short i) - ih, like sit
- ī (long i) - ee, like see
- o (short o) - o from the back of the mouth, like orb
- ō (long o) - oh, like home
- u (short u) - uh, like put
- ū (long u) - oo, like rule
- y (short y) - combined oo-ih sound, like German über
- ȳ (long y) - combined oo-ih sound for a longer time, like German über
Again, macrons typically don't appear outside of educational works, but they are important in familiarization of the language's pronunciation.
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