In English, particularly, groups of vowels often stand for a single sound. Vowel combinations like "ou", "oo", "ea" and "ee" in words such as tough, foot, read or teen represent single sounds. But they can also represent two seperate sounds, as does the "ea" in create.
apple , elephant , intellect ,octanes , union
The "A" at the beginning is the schwa. It's just that generic short vowel sound that can be represented by a number of letters in the English language.
It is used as a vowel, since English language syllables have at least one vowel sound. The consonant Y is the "sometimes vowel," as in family and rhythm (which, incidentally, has an implied schwa in the second syllable).
Yes, the word "cat" has a short vowel "a" sound. In the English language, vowels can be pronounced as short or long, and in the word "cat," the vowel "a" is pronounced as a short sound, similar to the "a" in "bat" or "sat."
The vowel sound is an "or" which is a long O in US English and a caret O (aw) in British English.
Here's a fun fact that might be helpful: "facetious" has all main vowels (AEIOU) in order. But technically, the word with the most vowels is also the longest word in the English language: the scientific name for a protein nicknamed "Titin." It has well over 180,000 letters.
The O could be a long vowel, but as OR is a special vowel sound because of its different pronunciation in US English (or) and British English (aw). Neither of the A's has a long sound.
The schwa vowel sound in conversation is a neutral, unstressed sound represented by the symbol ə. It is a common sound in English, found in words like "about," "ago," and "banana." The schwa sound often occurs in unstressed syllables or when a vowel is reduced in spoken language.
Goop
a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word
In the English language, "ch" isn't a syllable. Syllables have a vowel sound. It can be pronounced hard, as in "chop" or soft, as in "chute."
Phonemes are speech sounds, so a vowel phoneme is a speech sound produced by a vowel. Even though there are only five vowels in the alphabet, they are capable of producing different sounds. The English language has 44 phonemes out of which 20 are vowels and 24 consonants.