muhamedr
26-03-2010, 07:41 PM
:smile (1)::smile (1)::smile (1):
It's a pity that English is not phonetic! In some languages,you can look at a word and know immediately how to pronounceit. But in English you need to be a little more careful. Take the letters "ough", for example. They occur in manywords, but they do not always sound the same. 1. though (like o in go) 2. through (like oo in too) 3. cough (like off in offer) 4. rough (like uff in suffer) 5. plough (like ow in flower) 6. ought (like aw in saw) 7. borough (like a in above)
So how do you know the pronunciation of a word? Well,fortunately "ough" is an extreme example. English words arenot always that difficult. But in general, when you learn anew word, you should also make sure you know itspronunciation. If you do not have a teacher or someone tosay the word for you, you can look in a dictionary. All gooddictionaries give the pronunciation for each word, oftenwith special symbols. So it's a good idea to look at your dictionary carefully and learn the pronunciation symbols.After that, you'll
always be able to find the pronunciationof any word, easily. Try it with the 7 "ough" words above.
It's a pity that English is not phonetic! In some languages,you can look at a word and know immediately how to pronounceit. But in English you need to be a little more careful. Take the letters "ough", for example. They occur in manywords, but they do not always sound the same. 1. though (like o in go) 2. through (like oo in too) 3. cough (like off in offer) 4. rough (like uff in suffer) 5. plough (like ow in flower) 6. ought (like aw in saw) 7. borough (like a in above)
So how do you know the pronunciation of a word? Well,fortunately "ough" is an extreme example. English words arenot always that difficult. But in general, when you learn anew word, you should also make sure you know itspronunciation. If you do not have a teacher or someone tosay the word for you, you can look in a dictionary. All gooddictionaries give the pronunciation for each word, oftenwith special symbols. So it's a good idea to look at your dictionary carefully and learn the pronunciation symbols.After that, you'll
always be able to find the pronunciationof any word, easily. Try it with the 7 "ough" words above.