American Vowels Are Confusing Part 2

 

Today we are going to talk about another vowel that has multiple spellings and can make English very confusing.  I would think that it is extremely difficult for the non-native English to master!  Spell check is nice in this case but what do you do when you are reading something that has unfamiliar words and you aren’t sure what vowel sound to use?  For example, the "aw" sound. Look at the words below and see all the different spellings of this vowel. 

 

Au as in author

Aw as in paws

O as in loft

A as in hall

Al as in balk

Augh as in taught

Ough as in ought

 

That’s seven different spellings!  Any of those spellings with consonants indicate that the consonant(s) in that word is silent. You might have difficulties with this sound if your native tongue is Burmese, Hindi, Japanese, Navajo, Tamil, or Urdu.  My suggestion to you is to buy a dictionary that uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).   Spend some time to learn this phonetic alphabet, if you don’t know it already.  With this tool, you can learn the pronunciation of any word because it will use one symbol per sound (unlike English which uses multiple spellings for one sound.)  You could say this sentence without any difficulty (provided you could pronounce the sound).

 

 

Don’t be intimated.  It is easy to learn this alphabet and significantly assists the language learner in great pronunciation.  Not sure if you are pronouncing the sound correctly?  Listen to my two pronunciations of two words.  Can you hear a difference in the vowel sound between the pairs of words?  I’ll say them twice each. 

 

But—bought

Ma—maw

Boil—ball 

 

The second word in each pair is the /aw/ sound.  If you can hear a difference, then try to imitate the two words like I say them.  Use the recorder below to practice.

Here is a suggested resource:

A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English by John Samuel Kenyon  This book is only word pronunciation (no definitions) and it uses the IPA.  Are you curious about that sentence written in IPA?  Here is the answer: Good communication is key to success. 

 

Would you like to learn about the American English Vowel system?  Attend a webinar on the most popular vowel sound to learn English vowels.  Find out more here.