{"id":721,"date":"2011-01-16T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T07:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eltweekly.com\/elt-newsletter\/?p=721"},"modified":"2011-01-16T07:00:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-16T07:00:14","slug":"79-susan-ryans-tip-the-various-american-english-pronunciations-of-ough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/?p=721","title":{"rendered":"#79, Susan Ryan\u2019s Tip: The Various American English Pronunciations of \u2018ough\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you are speaking American English, the letter combination ough can be tricky to pronounce. That is because <strong>ough<\/strong> has many different pronunciations in spoken English. Here are examples of the most frequent pronunciations of ough. The categories listed here are adapted from the author and teacher Ann Cook.<\/p>\n<p>In these words ough is pronounced with an \/\u0251\/ sound as in father.<\/p>\n<p>cough<\/p>\n<p>bought<\/p>\n<p>brought<\/p>\n<p>ought<\/p>\n<p>thought<\/p>\n<p>In these words ough is pronounced with an \/o\/ sound as in rose.<\/p>\n<p>dough<\/p>\n<p>though<\/p>\n<p><strong>tho<\/strong>rough<\/p>\n<p><strong>fur<\/strong>lough<\/p>\n<p>In these words ough is pronounced with an \/uw\/ sound as in blue.<\/p>\n<p>through<\/p>\n<p>throughout<\/p>\n<p>In these words ough is pronounced with the schwa vowel sound \/\u0259\/.<\/p>\n<p>rough<\/p>\n<p>tough<\/p>\n<p>enough<\/p>\n<p>Doug<\/p>\n<p>In these words ough is pronounced with an \/ow\/ sound as in\u00a0 how.<\/p>\n<p>drought<\/p>\n<p>bough<\/p>\n<p>You can see from the examples here that the letter combination ough has five different sounds in spoken American English. Try to memorize these five patterns to be sure that you are pronouncing these words correctly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Susan Ryan<\/strong> is an American English pronunciation teacher and accent reduction coach. She currently lives in South Florida. Read more articles by Susan at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.confidentvoice.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.confidentvoice.com\/blog\/<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eltweekly.com\/ELTWeekly_Issue_78.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.columbia.edu\/cu\/e3b\/images\/PDF.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"51\" height=\"51\" \/>Download ELTWeekly Issue#79 in PDF Version<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you are speaking American English, the letter combination ough can be tricky to pronounce. That is because ough has many different pronunciations in spoken English. Here are examples of the most frequent pronunciations of ough. The categories listed here are adapted from the author and teacher Ann Cook. In these words ough is pronounced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","omw_enable_modal_window":"enable","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,39,141],"tags":[851,1017,1685,1687],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elt-articles-and-research-papers","category-elt-newsletter","category-eltweekly-issue79","tag-elt-newsletter","tag-eltweekly-issue79","tag-susan-ryan","tag-susan-ryans-pronunciation-tips","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltweekly.humbeestudio.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}