English only has six vowel letters (the same ones as German without the umlauts), but it has lots of vowels (monophthongs). Wikipedia&#x27;s article on lexical sets lists the following words as having distinct vowels in General American (the exact number varies between dialects): <i>trap, lot, face, dress, nurse, fleece, kit, goat, cloth, goose, foot, strut</i>. That&#x27;s twelve, and doesn&#x27;t include vowels which only appear in unstressed syllables (there&#x27;s at least one: for example, the second syllable in <i>comma</i>).