Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation

podcast.

My name is Mandy and this is our 105th episode.

Today's topic came from a request on the forums.

A user from Barcelona, Spain, asked about the words,

though, thought, through, and thorough.

The fact that all of these words share the OU-G-H spelling pattern

is at the heart of the confusion. However, confusing or not, it is necessary

to be able to confidently use these words. Only one of these words, thought, follows any

kind of predictable spelling pattern. When the letters OU-G-H are followed by the letter T, the O-U-G-H is usually pronounced as the

A-W sound, awe. That's the sound in the word dog. So the words thought, brought, and fought, all rhyme, and the AW sound, awe, is the vowel sound for all of them.

Let's move on to the word through.

Through, T-R-O-U-G-H is pronounced the same as through T-H-R-E-W.

Through T-H-R-E-W is phonetic.

We expect that the letters E-W can be pronounced as the O-O-O-Sound.

Other words spelled E-W and pronounced as the O-O-O-Sound are the words

chew, drew, and flu.

So, if you can remember that through T-H-RH and through THR-E-W are pronounced the same, you should

have less trouble with that word.

Just remember the sentence, he threw the ball through the window.

The vowel sound in the words, though, T-H-O-U-G-H, and thorough, T-H-O-R-U-G-H, is the long O sound,

O.

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