Monday, 9 July 2018

Homophones 1

Ex. Which of these words are homophones, that is words pronounced the same but spelt differently? Some of the following words do not match other words. The default accent is RP.

air, aren't, aunt, bare, bear, beat, beer, beet, boar, boor, bore, caught, court, ere, feat, feet, flew, flu, flue, hair, hare, heir, here, hoard, horde, hour, Lear, leer, mast, moor, more, must, our, pair, Paul, pear, peer, pier, pole, Pole, poll, root, route, sandwich, sand witch, shore, soar, sore, sure, weather, wet, whet, whether

KEY

air - ere - heir; aren't - aunt; bare - bear; beat - beet; boar - bore (and 'boor' unless we pronounce it /bʊə/) caught - court; feat - feet; flew - flu - flue, hair - hare; hoard - horde; hour - our; Lear - leer; moor (unless 'moor' is /mʊə/) - more; pair - pear; peer - pier; pole - Pole - poll; root - route; shore - sure (unless 'sure' is /ʃʊə/), soar - sore, wet - whet, weather - whether
no pair: beer, here, mast, must, Paul, sandwich (no /d/); sand witch

2 comments:

  1. Hello! I have a question. Sandwich and Sand witch appear to be no homophones. You have explained that this is because in sandwich there is no /w/, but the correct explanation would be 'no /d/', right? I've checked on the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, and I think that is what you meant, since sandwich does contain the /w/ phoneme.
    Thanks in advance, and thank you for all your work, it helps me tons with the preparation for my state exam for teaching English in Spain!

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    1. Thank you for your comment - unfortunately, I did not receive a notification and I've just seen your comment. Of course, this was my mistake: sandwich is /ˈsænwɪʤ/. I've corrected my post. Buena suerte with your teaching career.

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