6 ways to pronounce ‘-OUGH’ words in English

Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video, we are going to practice pronunciation.

We're going to look at a spelling that many learners have difficulty pronouncing.

So, what spelling is that?

It's the spelling of "ough".

I have many students who get scared when they see "ough".

When they see this, they think, "I don't know how to pronounce 'ough'", and why do they

think this?

Well, it's because there are different ways to pronounce this spelling.

The spelling and the pronunciation do not match.

So, in today's video, we're going to talk about some words that have "ough".

The words we're going to talk about today are common words in English that you will

probably use, and we're going to talk about how we pronounce these words.

So, to get started, let's look at a couple of different words that have "ough" in them,

and I want you to just listen carefully to the pronunciation.

I want you to listen and think, "Do we pronounce these words the same way or different ways?

Do we pronounce 'ough' the same way every time, or do you hear multiple pronunciations?"

So, let's get started.

This word is "bought", "though", "cough", "enough".

I'll say this one again because I said it in a little strange voice, "enough", "through",

"drought".

So, you might have noticed that we're using different vowel sounds, sometimes we have

an "f" sound.

There's a lot going on with these words with pronunciation, but they are not all pronounced

in the same way.

In fact, I just pronounced "ough" in six different ways.

So, in English, there's a bit of a controversy as to how many ways can you pronounce "ough".

Some people say in North American English there are seven ways, or maybe eight ways.

Some people, when they talk about British English, they say there might be nine ways.

Well, I'm going to make it easier for you.

In general, there are six important ways.

And why do I say these six ways are important?

Well, it's because these are the six ways you might actually use, you might actually

see a word that has one of these six pronunciations.

So, even though there are more pronunciations, a lot of "ough" words are older words that

we don't use anymore.

So, I'm going to teach you the "ough" words that actually will matter to you, and that

are common.

Okay?

So, let's get started by learning about words that have "ought" in them.

Okay, so, what is the first way we can pronounce "ough"?

We can pronounce "ough" like an "ah" sound.

So, if you think about the word "jaw" or "law", we have that "ah" sound in it.

We can pronounce "ough" like an "ah".

And notice there's no "g" in that, so the "g" is a silent letter.

So, let's look at some common words where you might hear this "ah" sound in it.

Probably the most common that my students use is the word "bought".

"Bought" is the past tense of the verb "to buy".

So, I can say, "I like to buy books.

Yesterday, I bought a book."

So, again, you'll see that it has the "ough" spelling.

For some of you, it might be helpful to write out how you might pronounce this word.

So, I've done that down here, B-A-W-T, "bought".

So, this is the pronunciation, and this is the correct spelling.

Again, it is the past tense of the verb "to buy".

Now, I have here another word that actually has a bit of a different spelling.

It's "augh", but I'm going to include it today because it also has this "ah" sound in it.

And that is the word "taught".

"Taught" is the past tense of "teach".

So, for any of you who are teachers, this is an important word.

I use this every day because I am a teacher, and every day I teach.

So, "Yesterday, I taught some students English."

So, "taught" is the past tense of "teach", and it rhymes with "bought".

So, if I wanted to write this out the way to pronounce it, I'd write A-T-A-W-T, "taught".

Now we have the next word, "fought".

"Fought" is the past tense of "fight".

So, sometimes we talk about people are in a fight, the past of that is "fought".

Again, it has an F-A-W-T sound, "fought".

All of these rhyme, "fought", "taught", "fought", because they all have that strong "ah" sound

in them.

Okay, the next word, "thought".

This is another common word.

Do you know what this is the past tense of?

It's the past tense of the verb "to think".

So, right now I'm thinking about eating for some reason.

I'm thinking about English, but yesterday I thought about grammar.

So, we can use the word "thought" to talk about the past.

This word is less common, so I would say that if you need to remember words today, really

focus on these words, but this is also a word you might see in English.

It's the past tense of the word "to seek".

"Seek" is another way to say "look for something".

When you seek something, you look for something.

But this is a bit of a formal word.

You might hear it in the game "Hide and Seek", so "seek" is a verb in English, but it's not

so common.

But the past tense of the verb "seek" is "sought", so again, it has that "aw" sound to it.

"Sought".

So, I've written it down here, S-A-W-T.

Now, I have another word that has that "aw" sound, and that's the word "ought".

"Ought" means "should".

It's very similar to "should".

I ought to do my homework.

I should do my homework.

But in terms of how frequently we use the word "ought", in North America, it is not

such a common word.

I think it is more common in England or Britain, but in North America, you can use it, but

it's not the most common word.

"Should" is a lot more common.

But again, this has the same pronunciation, "aw", so it has that "ought" sound to it.

Okay, so, again, the first way to pronounce O-U-G-H is "aw".

Now, let's look at another way to pronounce O-U-G-H.

Okay, so now let's look at some other common words that have that O-U-G-H spelling.

So, we have here the word "though".

Notice how I'm pronouncing the O-U-G-H in this word, "though"?

It sounds just like the letter O, or the O-E in "toe".

So, O-U-G-H sometimes is pronounced like "oh".

What are some other words that have this pronunciation?

We have "although", "thorough", and "dough".

So, "thorough" is - it describes a way of doing things.

When we do things thoroughly, it means we do them very carefully and diligently, and

we spend a lot of time on something.

"Although" and "though" are transition words, so we often use these in writing.

And then we have the word "dough".

"Dough" is the - when we make bread, or cookies, or cake, we often talk about dough.

So, that's the cake, or the cookies, or the bread before we bake it.

We call that pre-baked dough.

So, again, all of these have that O sound, and all of these are common words in English.

Now we have another word here that has a different way to pronounce O-U-G-H, and that's the word

"through".

"Through".

So, notice how I'm pronouncing O-U-G-H in this word?

It's like an "oo" sound, "through".

It rhymes with "you", "through", and it's like the "o" in "boot", "through".

So, sometimes when we talk about drive-throughs, we're now actually using a different spelling.

This is actually the original spelling.

When we're talking about drive-throughs, we've actually changed the word, where now we're

spelling it like this to show the pronunciation.

But in general, we're still using the word "through" with this spelling, T-H-R-O-U-G-H.

So, that's the third way to pronounce O-U-G-H, like an "oo" sound.

Now let's look at some other ways to pronounce O-U-G-H.

Okay, so let's look at the third common way of pronouncing O-U-G-H.

We have here the word "tough", "enough", "rough".

So, in this case, O-U-G-H has an F sound.

You wouldn't know this because there is no F in the spelling, but in the pronunciation,

there is an F. So, we pronounce this like "uff", "uff".

So, it has a short vowel at the beginning, and it sounds like the word "cuff".

If you look at my sleeve, this part of my sleeve is called a cuff.

These words all have that "uff" pronunciation, like "cuff".

So, again, it might be helpful to write down the pronunciation of this word if it helps

you remember it.

So, for example, instead of O-U-G-H, I might write down T-U-F-F.

That's how I would pronounce it, "tough".

Tough means difficult.

When something is tough, it is difficult.

Tough is a very common English word that you should know.

Another important English word that has O-U-G-H is "enough".

Enough is used a lot.

We often talk about "I don't have enough time", "I don't have enough money", "I don't have

enough laundry", whatever.

You can think of many examples with "enough".

And when we talk about "enough", we're talking about the quantity of something.

Do we have a good amount of quantity or not enough of something?

So, O-U-G-H, again, is pronounced like "uff", in "enough".

We have another word here, "rough".

Rough can - it has different meanings in English.

It has an O-U-G-H and it has this "uff" sound to it.

Rough means the opposite of smooth.

So, if you think about somebody's face, for example, if someone has a beard and you touch

their face, their face is rough because they have hair.

If someone has no hair on their face, we can say it's very smooth.

So, rough has different meanings in English.

This is one example of what "rough" means.

Okay, so now let's look at another way to pronounce O-U-G-H.

I have here "drought".

It takes me a moment sometimes to look at this word and to remember the pronunciation.

The word is "drought", "drought".

So, and then we have "plow".

"Drought" and "plow".

These words have an "ow" sound in them, similar to the word "cow", "ow".

So, we have "drought" and "plow".

So, what do these words mean?

Well, "drought" is an important word.

It means there's not enough rain for a period of time.

So, if there's no rain and there's a month or two months that goes by without rain, we

call that a "drought".

This is becoming an important word nowadays because of global warming, and many countries

now have droughts, so it's a good word to know.

"Plow" is a farming word.

When we use a plow, it's a type of machine we use on farmland.

We call that a "plow", and we can also use this as a verb.

We plow the land.

So, if you are interested in farming or in agriculture, this might be a good word to

know.

Okay, so we've done "f" and "ow", now let's look at the last pronunciation we're going

to talk about today, and that is "off", like in "cough".

So, "cough", again, there's this "f" sound, but we don't see it in the spelling.

When we cough, we go "cough", that's a "cough".

So, again, you have "ough", but the pronunciation is like "off", "cough".

So, just to remind you, we've just looked at six different pronunciations of "ough".

I've picked some very common words that have "ough" in them, because I think you should

focus on the common words first.

So, that is my - one of my tips, learn the common key words in English with "ough".

There are many "ough" words in English, but we don't use some of them, so you don't need

to learn them.

For example, "tough", it's a word we use a lot, I recommend learning this word.

We have here another word, "sloth".

I don't - I don't think I have ever used this word in my life, so even though it exists,

I understand the meaning, I don't actually use this word frequently.

So, focus on the "ough" words that you will use in your everyday life, and memorize the

pronunciation of those.

How will you know how to pronounce these words?

Well, one recommendation is you can always Google the pronunciation.

If you type in the word in Google and pronunciation, you can actually see how to say these words.

So, that's one recommendation, especially - we've covered some words here, but maybe

you come across another word in the future, so that might be one way to help you.

My other tip is remember, there are different ways to pronounce "ough".

There are different ways, but I would say that there are six very important pronunciations.

There are nine in total, depending on who you talk to, but I would say six are very

important and very common - common examples of pronunciation.

Again, I am a North American, my accent is North American, so this might be a little

bit different in England, but from a North American pronunciation perspective, there

are six major pronunciations of "ough".

Okay, so we've covered a lot in this video.

Now I'd like to invite you to come check out our website at www.engvid.com.

There you can actually take a quiz to practice what you learned today.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, where I have a lot more resources on learning

English, how to study, pronunciation, and a lot of other things related.

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Thanks for watching.