| Why do so many people have problems
with English spelling? You may find it strange to find a question about spelling in
an article on pronunciation! The answer to the question is that
people have problems because many English words are spelt very
differently from the way they are pronounced. There are also
many words which are spelt in a similar way but which have very
different pronunciations.
Example
cough (rhymes with off)
plough (rhymes with now)
These problems do not exist in Spanish, for
example, because when you learn the Spanish alphabet, you can
learn the sound
of each letter. English, on the other hand, has 26 letters in
the alphabet (from A to Z) but has many more sounds. To be precise,
there are 44 sounds, but some people would argue that there are
more if we include "triphthongs" (where three vowel sounds are
pronounced very quickly, one after the other). We have five vowels
in the alphabet - A, E, I, O, U, but there are actually twelve
vowel sounds in English. So, in English, it is not very helpful
to associate letters of the alphabet with sounds; it will work
only in a very few cases.
Is there anything we can do to learn more about the pronunciation
of English?
Yes. It can help to know what the 44 sounds are. There is an
international phonetic alphabet which has a symbol for each sound.
At first, all the strange symbols may seem a little daunting,
but if you try to learn a few at a time, it should not be too
difficult. When you know the symbols and you know which sounds
they represent, you will be able to find out how a new word is
pronounced by looking in a dictionary. Most good English-English
dictionaries show the pronunciation of words by giving the phonetic
symbols. There is usually a phonetic chart, with examples, in
the introduction to the dictionary. If you are reading a book
or a newspaper and come across a new word, look up both the meaning
and the pronunciation in the dictionary.
Look up the following words and work out how to pronounce
them.
| 1. |
rough |
2. |
tour |
3. |
thought |
4. |
house |
| 5. |
bough |
6. |
although |
7. |
ought |
8. |
couple |
Here are some more difficult words. Do the same with these
words and practise repeating some of the words that are new
to you.
| 1. |
renounce |
2. |
tout |
3. |
insouciance |
4. |
oust |
| 5. |
soul |
6. |
rouse |
7. |
source |
8. |
acoustic |
|
