OUGH!

Hello folks!

Today I am going to write about pronunciation. Have you ever noticed that words with same spelling patterns may be pronounced in different ways? Have a look at the following words:

• Bomb , Comb , Tomb , Sombre 

All of these words have the spelling 'omb' but all of them are pronounced in a different way. This is the right pronunciation for each word:

• Bomb /bɒm/
• Comb  /kəʊm/
• Tomb  /tuːm/
• Sombre  /ˈsɒmbə/

Can you think of a similar example? Have a look at the following video: 

Exactly! The words: bough, rough, through and cough are spellt similarly but they are all pronounced differently. This is the phonetic transcription of each word: 

• Bough /baʊ/
• Rough /rʌf/
• Through  /θruː/
• Cough  /kɒf/

So, we could say that the spelling 'ough' has different pronunciations. Here is the full list of pronunciations: 

/ʌf/	enough, hough, rough, slough, tough
/ɒf~ɔːf/	cough, trough
/aʊ/	bough, drought, plough
/oʊ/	dough, furlough, though
/ɔː/	bought, brought, ought, sought, thought, wrought
/uː/	brougham, slough, through
/ə/	borough, thorough
/ʌp/	hiccough
/ɒk/	hough
/ɒx/	lough

No, have you got enough /inʌf/ ? I leave you practising the different sounds. Have a nice week!