Words that don’t sound the same

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In English it is easy to find words with different spellings that sound exactly the same, like son and sun or no and know.

On the other hand, some words are pronounced differently although they share the same spelling. This is not so frequent, but it can be a bit more puzzling.

Bow sounds /bəʊ/ when you use it to play the violin, or when you shoot an arrow with it. Just like the bow in rainbow. If you bend your head as a sign of respect, however, you bow – but it sounds /baʊ/.

Another example is the verb read, pronounced /ri:d/ in the infinitive and in the simple present, but /red/ in the simple past and in the past participle.

  


The more English you know, the easier it becomes to predict pronunciation when you see a new word written. But spelling doesn’t always help, so I prefer to trust a good dictionary instead.


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