Phonetics: /əʊ/

In British English, the phonetic symbol /əʊ/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "note", "boat" and "stone". 

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /əʊ/ include the following:

• with "o": don't - ghost - go - home - lone - so - stone - phone - smoke - won't;
• with "oa": boat - coat - goal - road - roast - throat - toast;
• with "ol": fold - gold - hold - hole - old - pole/poll - told - toll - sold - stole - roll;
• with "ow": bowl - blow - flow - grow - low - row - slow - snow - throw;
• homophones: groan/grown - hole/whole - know/no - loan/lone - pole/poll - role/roll - so/sew/sow - sole/soul.

When using words containing this vowel sound, Spanish speakers tend to use /ɒ/, which is very similar to the Spanish letter "o", i.e. without practice, they tend not to distinguish between "not" and "note" or, even between "want" and "won't".

Written by NativeEnglish

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