Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 160th episode.

In our last episode, I explained non-phonetic words.

Non-phenetic words are the words whose pronunciation we cannot predict based on their spelling.

Those words should be memorized.

However, you can't just memorize the non-phonetic words.

You also need to memorize the common spelling patterns for each sound.

Since this episode deals a lot with English spelling patterns,

it will probably be easier to understand if you're reading the transcript while listening.

You can find the transcript by going to

www.prenuncian.com slash podcast.

Some basic phonetic patterns can go a long way.

A very good pattern to know, for instance, is the vowel consonant E pattern for long vowels.

We can guess that the words cake, bike, and home are pronounced with the long A, long I, and long O respectively because

of their vowel consonant E spelling. Sometimes though the patterns don't apply to a huge number

of words. Then, as learners, you need to decide if the pattern is worth memorizing or not.

Today we're going to talk about a small set of phonetic patterns.

If we study them in a set, then at least you can be aware that they exist.

You'll know that this is a set of patterns that you need to pronounce with care.

Today's set of patterns is the W plus A,

W plus OR, and W plus AR.

You see, the letter W before the letter A or the letters OR or A causes weird things to happen to the pronunciation of the letter A or the letters OR or A.

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