Good afternoon, dear students!
I have a great little entry for you today about the pronunciation of the letters ''ough''. It's quite a popular combination of letters in English, if you didn't know, but can produce A LOT of different sounds. Check out this sentence below:
''A rough-coated, dough-faced thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough. After falling into a slough he coughed and hiccoughed.''
There are 9 different pronunciations of ''OUGH'' in this sentence.
WHATTT.
I know.
Let's look at them in order (I've done the best I can to give you a phonetic pronunciation for Spanish speakers):
Rough: Rahf
Dough: Doh
Thoughtful: Thahtful
Ploughman: Plawman
Through: Thru
Scarborough: Scarborah
Slough: Slaw
Coughed: Coft
Hiccoughed: Hikapt
Why can one combination allowed to make so many different sounds when it comes to pronunciation? Who knows. I don't. I just know you have to pronounce these things correctly if you want to be understood, so here we are, dear students.
What other words have you come across lately that end in ''OUGH''? For those of you working on pronunciation in your English classes right now, we'll be reviewing LOTS of these words over the next two weeks, because there isn't a rule to show you how each one should be pronounced. Somewhere in the United States, a 9-year-old child is studying these words because we have to memorize the spelling and pronunciation for lots of words in English-- especially these tricky ones. Take heart in knowing that if small children can learn it, so can you, you genius adult professional!
Check out this video from the old show, ''I Love Lucy'', (a personal favorite of mine), where Lucy is trying to correct Ricky's pronunciation (for the record, Ricky is a Cuban immigrant so the show makes a lot of jokes about how difficult English can be).
Happy Tuesday and happy studying!
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