USING THE ‘O’ SOUND

There is a short ‘o’ sound when ‘o’ is between two consonants:

box	hop	god	lob	lock	log
long	pod	spot

There is a long vowel sound when there is an ‘e’ at the end of the word:

chocke

hope

joke

lone

pole

spoke

Using the long ‘o’ sound in ‘oa’, ‘oe’, ‘oo’, ‘ou’ and ‘ow’

The letter ‘o’ followed by an ‘a’, an ‘e’, another ‘o’, a ‘u’ or a ‘w’ can produce a long ‘o’ sound as in ‘hope’:

oa:	boast	boat	coach	coal	coax	foam
	goal	groan	oak	road	toad	toast
oe:	doe	foe	hoe	roe	toe	woe
oo:	brooch
ou:	boulder	mould	soul	though
ow:	barrow	blow	bow(weapon)	crow	flow
	furrow	grow	low(weapon)	mow	row(line)
	sown	swallow	tallow	throw
	yellow

The three vowels, ‘eau’, can also produce a long ‘o’ sound. They derive from the French language and the plural form is sometimes an ‘x’ at the end of the word instead of an ‘s’.

beau

gateau

tableau

USING THE ‘U’ SOUND

Short vowel sound as in:

cup

duck

publish

suck

sup

up

Using ‘ou’

The vowels ‘ou’ can also be pronounced as a short ‘u’ sound:

double	couple	courage	flourish	rough
tough	young

USING THE ‘Y’ SOUND

A ‘y’ is often pronounced as a vowel. It can be used to produce a short ‘i’ sound:

cyclamen	cynical	cyst	gymnast	hysterical
krypton

In the following words it is pronounced as a long ‘e’ sound:

baby

happy

litany

literacy

lovely

puppy

It can also produce a long ‘i’ sound:

by	byte	crucify	cycle	cyclone	dynamite
fry	hydrate

MAKING OTHER VOWEL SOUNDS

As well as the ‘short’ and ‘long’ sounds produced by the five vowels, other vowel sounds can be made by combinations of letters.

Using the ‘ar’ sound as in ‘car’

The digraph ‘ar’ and the combination of ‘ear’ can produce this sound:

air:	bar	barter	card	cart	dark	darn
	embark	garter	hard	hark	mar	march
	partner	remark
ear:	heart	hearth

Using the ‘air’ sound

The following combinations of letters can all produce an ‘air’ sound: air, are, ear, eir:

air:	chair	fair	hair	lair	pair	stair
ear:	bear	pear	tear	wear
eir:	heir
are:	care	dare	mare

Using the ‘ear’ sound

’ear’ and ‘eer’ can both be pronounced as ‘ear’:

ear:	appear	beard	dear	hear	near	spear
eer:	beer	career	leer	queer	seer	steer
	volunteer

Using the ‘er’ sound

A number of digraphs can be used to produce an ‘er’ sound as in ‘her’: ar er ir or our re ur:

ar:	circular	grammar	nectar	particular	regular	sugar
er:	barter	berth	butter	butter	cutter	garter
	jerk	lawyer	mercy	merge	teacher	verse
	wetter	writer
ir:	bird	dirt fir	first	flirt	girdle third	thirst
	whirl
or:	actor	author	conductor		contractor	doctor
	hector	inspector	instructor		professor	solicitor
our:	armour	colour	favour		glamour	humour
	savour
re:	acre	centre	metre		sceptre	sombre
	spectre	theatre
ur:	burn	burr	church	cur	curd	curtsey
	curve	fur	furnish	hurt	lurch
	murder	nurse	purse	slurp	turkey

The letters ‘ear’ and ‘our’ can also produce an ‘er’ sound:

ear:	earn	earth	heard	learn	search	yearn
our:	courteous	journal	journey	scourge

Using the ‘ew’ sound

The diagraphs ‘eu’ and ‘ue’ are pronounced as if there is a ‘y’ before it as in ‘yew’:

eu:	chew	dew	few	hew	knew	pewter
	spew	stew	steward
ue:	cue	due	hue	sue

The letters ‘ieu’ and ‘iew’ also produce a similar sound:

ieu:	lieu
iew:	review	view

Using the ‘oo’ sound as in ‘too’

There are several combinations of vowels that make the ‘oo’ sound:

ew:	brew	crew	flew	threw
oe:	shoe
oo:	bloom	broom	choose	croon	food	groom
	moo	mood	shoot	voodoo	zoo
ou:	bouquet	group	soup	souvenir	through
ui:	fruit	juice	recruit

Using ‘oo’ as in ‘book’

The ‘oo’ combination as in ‘book’ sounds halfway between a short ‘o’ and a short ‘u’ - an ‘uh’ sound:

cook

crook

foot

good

rook

wool

Using the ‘oi’ and ‘oy’ sounds

These two digraphs are usually pronounced as in ‘boy’:

oi:	boil	choice	coil	coin	goitre	join
	loin	noise	point	soil	toil	voice
oy:	boy	coy	destroy	employ	joyful	loyal
	royalty	toy

Using ‘ou’ and ‘ow’ as in ‘cow’

ou:	about	aloud	bough	bounce	bound	found
	ground	grouse	hour	round
ow:	allowed	brown	crowd	crowned	down
	drown	frown	powder	prowler	row (noise)
	rowdy	town

Using the ‘or’ sound

The following digraphs produce an ‘or’ sound: al, au, aw, or, ou:

al:	call	chalk	fall	hall	recall	talk
	tall	walk	wall
au:	applause	caught	daughter	distraught	fraught
	naughty	slaughter	taught	taut
aw:	awful	brawl	caw	claw	dawn	draw
	fawn	flaw	lawn	lawyer	paw	pawn
	saw	shawl	yawn
or:	before	bore	for	more	lore	torch
	torn	torpid	sorbet	sordid	sore
ou:	bought	brought	thought

The ‘or’ sound is also produced by using three letter combinations: ‘oar’ and ‘oor’:

oar:	boar	hoary	hoard	hoarse	roar
oor:	door	moor	poor	spoor

Using the ‘our’ sound

The ‘our’ sound can also be made by ‘ough’ and ‘ower’:

our:	flour	hour	scoured	sour
ough:		bough
ower:	flower	tower

Making separate vowel sounds

Sometimes two vowels together are not pronounced as one sound but each vowel represents one syllable (single unit in a word). All the following words use two vowel sounds and have been divided into syllables for clarity:

be.ing	de.i.fy	de.i.ty	do.ing
glac.i.er	ob.ed.i.ent	qui.et	re.in.force	re.i.ter.ate
sci.ence	spon.tan.e.ous	var.i.e.ty

The word ‘ga.ie.ty’ has three syllables; the middle one contains two vowels but creates one sound

CHECKING THE CONSONANT SOUNDS

There are more consonant sounds than there are letters in the alphabet.

Using digraphs

A digraph is two letters - either consonants or vowels - which together produce a single sound. Following are some examples of consonant combinations:

ch:	chain	chair	chase	cheat	choose	mischief
	torch
sh:	shake	shell	shoe	shoot	shut	push
th:	path	pithy	the	these	though	thought
	throw

Using ‘tch’

Sometimes a ‘t’ is added before the ‘ch’ but the pronunciation remains the same:

crutch	ditch	hatch	hitch	hutch	pitch
witch	watch

Using ‘ph’

The combination of ‘p’ and ‘h’ is usually pronounced as an ‘f’ sound:

phone	phonetic	phoney	photograph
phosphate	phosphorescence	phosphorus	phrase
physics

Using ‘gh’

Using ‘gh’ at the end of a word is also often pronounced as an ‘f’ sound:

cough

laugh

rough

Using consonants and vowel combinations

The combination of consonants and vowels can also produce specific consonant sounds.

Using ‘q’

Remember that ‘q’ is always followed by a ‘u’ and is usually pronounced ‘kw’:

equal

equity

queen

quick

quiet

quite

Using ‘ion’

A ‘t’ or ‘s’ or ‘sh’ followed by ‘ion’ at the end of a word is usually pronounced ‘sh’:

tion:	detention	information	mitigation	obligation
	plantation	pollution	sensation	station
	transition	translation
sion:	comprehension	confusion	decision	discussion
	division	erosion	impression	incision
	mission	occasion	passion	pension
	precision	profession	progression	session
shion:	cushion	fashion

If the word ends in the sound ‘a-shun’, nine times out of ten the ending will be with a ‘t’ - ‘ation’:

accommodation	administration	creation
imagination	population	punctuation
relaxation	stimulation	transformation

Using ‘cian’

The ending ‘cian’ is usually used for a person’s job:

beautician	dietician	electrician	magician
musician	mathematician	optician	paediatrician
physician	politician	statistician	technician

Using ‘tian’

The ‘tian’ ending is used for only a few adjectives, usually formed from proper nouns and therefore written with a capital letter:

Alsatian

Dalmatian

Egyptian

Haitian

Martian

INTRODUCING SILENT CONSONANTS

Some consonants at the beginning of digraphs are not pronounced at all. Only the second letter is pronounced.

Ignoring the ‘g’, ‘k’ and ‘w’

In words that begin with ‘gn’ and ‘kn’ the ‘g’ and ‘k’ are silent:

gnarled	gnash	gnat	gnaw	gnocchi
gnome	Gnostic	gnu
knack	knapsack	knave	knee	kneel
knell	knew	knickers	knife	knight
knit	knock	knoll	knot	know
knowledge		known	knuckle

In words that begin with ‘wr’ the ‘w’ is also silent

wraith	wrap	wrangle	wreck	wrapper
wreak	wreath	wreathe	wreckage
wrench	wrest	wrestle	wretch	wretched
wriggle	wright	wring	wrinkle	wrist
writ	write	writer	writhe	wrong
wrote	wrought	wry

Ignoring the ‘p’

In a few cases the ‘p’ at the beginning of a word is ‘silent’. The following letter is usually an ‘n’ or more often an ‘s’:

pneumatic	pneumonia
psalm	psalter	pseudo	pseudonym
psychedelic	psychiatry	psychic	psychologist
psychopath	psychotic

Ignoring the ‘d’

A silent ‘d’ sometimes appears before ‘g’ when there is a short vowel sound before it:

bridge	budge	budgerigar	budget	dodge
fudge	grudge

A long vowel sound is usually followed by ‘ge’:

age

cage

page

rage

sage

Finding the soft ‘c’

When ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘y’ follows a ‘c’, the pronounciation is like an ‘s’:

central	centigrade	centimetre	centre	centipede
cinch	cinders	cinema	cyanide	cybernetics
cynic

All other vowels produce a ‘hard’ sound:

cat

care

cave

cavalry

coat

cute

When adding ‘ed’ or ‘ing’ to a word ending in ‘c’, it is usually necessary to add a ‘k’ so that the ‘hard’ sound is retained:

mimic	mimicked	mimicking
picnic	picnicked	picnicking
traffic	trafficked	trafficking

Finding the soft ‘g’

An ‘e’ following a ‘g’ usually but not always suggests a ‘soft’ sound:

age	cringe	gem	gender	genealogy
general	generation	gentle	geology	singe

When a suffix is added, the ‘e’ at the end of the word is usually retained:

ageing

singeing

Other words are usually pronounced with a hard ‘g’:

gate	gaze	grate	grateful	gravel
grave	graze	grease	greed
green	grey	guess	guard	guide

In the following words the first ‘g’ is hard and the second is soft as it precedes an ‘e’:

garage

greengage

gauge

CHECKLIST

• The five vowels, a, e, i, o, u can be ‘long’ or ‘short’.
• A dipthong is when two vowels are combined to make a single vowel sound.
• A digraph is when any two letters are combined to make a single sound.
• The rule ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ can be broken.
• A ‘y’ is sometimes used instead of a vowel.
• Some consonants are ‘silent’.

PRACTISING WHAT YOU’VE LEARNT

1. Add either ‘ei’ or ‘ie’ to the following words:

Bel..ve, br..f, c..ling, ch..f, dec..ve, ..ght, fr..ght, gr..ve, n..ce, n..ghbour, pr..st, prot..n, rec..ve, r..n, s..ze, sh..kh, sh..ld, v..l, v..n, y..ld.

2. Correct any wrong spellings in the following sentences:

• a.He opened the biskit tin but the biuscits were stale.
• b.Niether Jane nor her brother was aloud to go to the mach.
• c.She became histerical when her handbag was stolen.
• d.The docter was called when the child became ill.
• e.The hier to the throne visited the docks and wachted the frieght being wieghed.
• f.He found the comprehention in his exam paper easy but the translacion was more difficult.
• g.The opening of the new stashun was an impressive occation.
• h.The group was queit as the ice slid down the glasier.
• i.There was a spontanious burst of applause as the winer crossed the finishing line.
• j.The mach was abandoned as the pich was waterlogged.