The first thing you need to do when you learn a foreign language is to become familiar with the sounds of the language and how they are written, and the same goes for Lojban. Fortunately, Lojban sounds (phonemes) are fairly straightforward.
There are six vowels in Lojban.
| a | as in father (not as in hat) | |
| e | as in get | |
| i | as in machine or (Italian) vino (not as in hit) | |
| o | as in bold or more — not as in so (this should be a 'pure' sound.) | |
| u | as in cool (not as in but) |
These are pretty much the same as vowels in Italian or Spanish. The sixth vowel, y, is called a schwa in the language trade, and is pronounced like the first and last A's in America (that's English America, not Spanish.) It's the sound that comes out when the mouth is completely relaxed.
Two vowels together are pronounced as one sound (diphthong). Some examples are:
| ai | as in high | |
| au | as in how | |
| ei | as in hey | |
| oi | as in boy | |
| ia | like German Ja | |
| ie | like yeah | |
| iu | like you | |
| ua | as in waah!, or French quoi | |
| ue | as in question | |
| uo | as in quote | |
| ui | like we, or French oui |
Double vowels are rare. The only examples are ii, which is pronounced like English ye (as in "Oh come all ye faithful") or Chinese yi, and uu, pronounced like woo.