English has way more vowels than you think

Most languages have 5 vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u). English has about 15 distinct vowel sounds. That means English uses vowel distinctions your language probably doesn't make. For example, the words 'bit,' 'beat,' 'bat,' 'bet,' 'but,' 'boot,' 'book,' 'bought,' and 'boat' all have different vowels. If your language has only 5 vowels, your brain wants to collapse several of these into the same sound.