Video Transcript

Hello everyone, my name’s Max.

This video is going to be relatively short because I’m just going to teach you the different ways of pronouncing “ough”.

Well, there are ten different ways of pronouncing this combination of letters, so it probably won’t be that short, but don’t panic, because I’m only going to teach you eight of these pronunciations.

Yah, there’s a big difference between eight and ten.

Basically, two of the pronunciations are only found in Scottish and Irish words, and I hadn’t actually heard of these words before I did research for this video.

So yes, we’re just going to focus on eight.

Pronunciation number one: “o”.

Like in the word “go”.

This is found in words like: dough.

Like in cookie-dough ice cream.

If you haven’t heard the word “dough” or if you’ve seen it, but you didn’t know what it meant, dough is the mixture of wet and dry ingredients that you then put in the oven to make bread or cookies.

The word d-o-e, doe, is pronounced exactly the same way, but d-o-e is a female deer.

“Do, a deer, a female deer.”

Yes, I’ve probably seen the Sound of Music a few too many times.

Number two: “oo”.

Like in the words “too” and “loo”.

What is a loo? A loo is just a polite British way of saying toilet.

The only word you’ll probably come across that has “ough” and the sound “oo” is “through”.

Very easy.

The third pronunciation is “off”.

Just like the word “off”, o-f-f.

Some examples include “cough” and “trough”.

A trough is a container, roughly this size, that farm animals, particularly pigs, eat or drink out of.

So if you want to insult somebody, instead of saying, “Enjoy your lunch,” you could just say, “Enjoy your trough.”

Number four: “uff”.

Like in the word “suffer”.

You find this in words such as “enough” and “tough”.

Tough, like difficult or strong.

The fifth pronunciation is “ow”.

Just like in the word “cow”.

This is found in the word “plough”.

I don’t think there are many other words that have this.

A plough is a machine or instrument… in the past… cows or bulls pulled this.

Go look it up because I grew up in the city.

Number six: “aw”.

Like in the word “jaw”. This is your jaw.

There was also a movie that came out several decades ago with a very realistic-looking shark, and it was called Jaws.

This is found in words like “ought”, “fought” and “thought”.

Number seven: “ə”.

Just like in the words “above” and “about”.

This is the schwa sound. It’s “ə”.

I know it might sound like I’m burping.

That’s because I’m using my throat. There’s a glottal stop in that.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry, because I’m going to do a video purely on the schwa sound. We use it a lot in English.

Some examples of “ough” pronounced as “ə” are in “borough” and “thorough”.

Once again though, the Americans pronounce this somewhat differently.

For “borough” and “thorough”, they use the first pronunciation, which is “o”, like in “go”.

And number eight. Hehe, you’ll love this one.

Well, it is actually pretty easy to remember, to be honest, because there’s only one word.

The word is “hiccough”.

What is a hiccough?

A hiccough is when, for example, you laugh too much or you drink too quickly, and you’re making sounds like…

Anyway, those are hiccoughs.

Some people do spell this word h-i-c-c-u-p, because, after all, it is pronounced “hiccup”, “up” like up and down.

But most people still spell it h-i-c-c-o-u-g-h, because in English we love logic.

That’s it guys. I hope you learnt something.

If you liked this video, please don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, and if you have any questions or queries regarding pronunciation, or anything for that matter – provided it’s related to English – don’t hesitate to write some comments down below.

Alternatively, you can find out for yourself.

Yes, the Internet is a wonderful place, and there are some very good online dictionaries these days.

Some that I often use are:
http://www.dictionary.com
http://www.dict.cc
http://www.wordreference.com

But my two personal favourites are:
http://www.wiktionary.org
http://www.thefreedictionary.com

On these last two, you can find audio files with both British and American pronunciation, and those exist for most words.

See you next time.