Saturday, March 7th, 2009
English Pronunciation Podcast 26-
Recognizing and Using the Vowel /oʊ/: This podcast teaches you how to recognize the vowel /oʊ/ by its spelling and offers practice exercises for using this vowel in your everyday speech.

In this weeks' podcast, we're going to continue to learn and practice the important vowel /oʊ/

*I strongly recommend that you listen to podcast #25 (how to articulate /oʊ /) before this one!

The focus of today's lesson is:

• learning how to recognize /oʊ/ by its spelling
• learning the most common spelling patterns and the exceptions

In your native language, the way the word is written is almost always the way it's pronounced.
Unfortunately, this isn't the case in Engilsh.
There are five vowel letters-a,e,i,o and u, but there are fifteen vowels sounds!
One of the most challenging aspects of English pronunciation is that one vowel can have a few different spellings, so it's important to learn the most common spelling patterns of a vowel, as well as the exceptions.
Learning these will make your pronunciation much more accurate and will make it easier to determine the pronunciation of a word.

The most common spelling patterns of /oʊ/:

Spelling pattern #1- <o>+<consonant> or< two consonants> :  

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following words containing /oʊ/ spelled with <o>+<consonant>:

open ... no ... cold... folder... don't... wont...

Spelling pattern #2 / oʊ / spelled <oa>

Exercise : Listen and repeat the following words containing /oʊ/ spelled <oa>

boat ... toast ... load ... road... loan...

Spelling pattern #3 /oʊ / spelled <ow>

Exercise : Listen and repeat the following words containing /oʊ/ spelled <ow>

show ... own ... blow ... know ... grow ...

Exceptional spellings patterns of /oʊ/
Looking at these words, you would never guess they were pronounced /oʊ/ , so it's important to memorize them. :

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following words which contain /oʊ/:

Exceptional spelling pattern: <ough>

though... although... dough...

Exceptional spelling pattern <ou>

soul ... shoulder ... boulder ...

Exceptional spelling pattern <oe>

toe ... joe . ..foe ...

More exceptional cases: The vowel sounds in the following words are pronounced /oʊ /

sew ... folk ...bureau ..

In your native language, the way a word is written is almost always the way that it's pronounced.
Unfortunately this isn't the case in English.
English is a mix of various languages and this resulted in some of the strange spelling patterns that we learned today.
One of the best ways to memorize these spellings is to use them in sentences.

So let's learn some common American expressions and idioms which contain the /oʊ/sound.

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following sentences which contain exceptional spellings of /oʊ/

She's giving him the cold shoulder. (ignoring him on purpose)

The eyes are the window of the soul. ( eyes tell us about someone's character)

He's a regular Joe. ( the average, typical American)

We have to be on our toes at work. (be alert, ready)

Now that you've become aware of the various spelling patterns of /oʊ /,I encourage you to practice this sound as often as possible.
Look at the spelling patterns discussed in today's podcast and try to think of more examples in which the vowel sound /oʊ /is spelled that way.

Practice is Key!

The more you practice the vowel sounds, the more you'll develop muscle memory - the ability to say the sound automatically and correctly.

Speaking English clearly and correctly takes a lot of practice.
But with practice you will get it!

Looking for more practice? Try Best Accent Training mp3s!

Any questions, comments or suggestions ?
Contact us at: contact@englishpronunciationpod.com

Thank you and see you next time!  

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