Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Watch the vdeo about OUGH here or the full lesson on the blog
Originally, Anglo-Saxon words were written with the letter 'H' to indicate a 'voiceless velar
fricative' in words like 'Bach'.2 In the 13th century with the invasion of the French and their
influence in the English language...a letter 'G' was added to the letter 'H' to represent this
sound.4 And then, in the 17th century this voiceless velar fricative began to change. In a few
words, the sound completely disappeared (as in the words "through" and "bought") In other
words, the sound 'voiceless velar fricative' was converted into a 'voiceless labiodental fricative'
(between the teeth) that now sounds like the letter 'F' in words like 'cough' and 'enough'.5
Watch the video to practice your pronunciation here >>>
Watch the video above to hear the pronunciation of OUGH of each of these six sounds, the
vocabulary words and phrases. Use the video to practice your pronunciation of these sounds in
English.
Bibliography
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(orthography)
2. http://www.howtospell.co.uk/gh-words
3. https://www.quora.com/Pronunciation/How-did-gh-at-the-end-ofsome-words-become-aneff-sound
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ-g8iF3Fdk
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ-g8iF3Fdk
http://rachelsenglish.com/pronounce-ough/
http://www.pronuncian.com/Podcast/Default.aspx?Episode=205
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/intermediate/unit-9/session-1
Get more English Lessons at EXLenglish.com and Youtube.com/c/EXLenglish