IPA phoneme \w\

In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol **/w/** corresponds to the semivowel sound in words like "world", "week" and "water". See also IPA phonetic symbol [w].

## Common words

**IPA consonants**

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of **/w/** include the following

### "w"

* Initial "w". Remember that for simplicity /ɒ/ means /ɒ/*BrE*, /ɑː/*AmE*

"wa" or "wha"
/weɪ/: wait, wake, waste, way, wave
/wɔː/: walk, wall, Walter, war, warm, warn
/wɒ/: wander, wasp, watch
/wɔː/, /wɒ/*AmE*: water
/wɒ/, /wɔː/*AmE*: want, wash, Washington
/wɒ/, /wʌ/*AmE*: was
other: we, wear, week, well, wife, will, win, wish, with, woman, wonder, word, work, world, worry, would
* "w" at the beginning of a syllable: always, anyway, award, aware, away, Delaware, forward, framework, Hawaii /həˈwaɪiː, həˈwɑːiː/, network, otherwise, reward, software, Taiwan

* "w" in the middle of a syllable: between, Dwight, Gwendolyn, Swede, Sweden, sweet, swim, swing, Swiss, Switzerland, switch, tweet, twice, Twitter

### "wh"

See also Wikipedia Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.

Currently in most accents "wh" is pronounced /w/. However in some accents this digraph is pronounced /hw/. In some of those accents "wh" is a single sound, transcribed as [ʍ].

* Initial "wh". Remember that for simplicity /ɒ/ means /ɒ/*BrE*, /ɑː/*AmE*

"wha"
/weɪ/: whale
/wɒ/, /wʌ/*AmE*: what
/wɒ/, /wʌ/,*AmE* /wə/*AmE*: whatever
other: wheel, when, where, whether, which, while, whisper, white, why
* "wh" at the beginning of a syllable: anywhere, everywhere, meanwhile

### "u"

"gu" as /gw/: distinguish, guacamole, Guam, Guatemala, iguana, language, linguistics, Managua, Nicaragua, Paraguay, penguin, Uruguay
"q" as /kw/: consequence, equipment, quality, quarter, question, quick, quite, request, require
"su" as /sw/: persuade, suite
"hu" as /w/: chihuahua /tʃɪˈwɑːwə*BrE*, tʃɪˈwɑːwɑː*AmE*/
"ju" as /w/: marijuana /ˌmærəˈwɑːnə/, San Juan /ˌsæn ˈwɑːn/
other: Buenos Aires, Ecuador, Kuala Lumpur /ˈkwɑːlə lʊmˈpʊər/, Puerto Rico, Venezuela
### Other

* Ouagadougou /ˌwɑːgəˈduːguː/
* ouija /ˈwiːdʒə/
* quinoa /ˈkiːnwɑː/

### /w/ not written

* one, once
* choir /ˈkwaɪər/

## Homophones

* one, won; sweet, suite; wait, weight; waste, waist; ware, wear, where; way, weigh; which, witch; why, Y; wood, would;

## No /w/

Many words that have "w" in their spelling don't have /w/ in their pronunciation. This in some cases means there are subtle differences in syllabification. For example "power" is /ˈpaʊ.ər/ and not /ˈpɑː.wər/. Note, however, that the realization of some of these vowels may contain a [w] sound, as in *power* pronounced [ˈpawɚ]. See IPA phonetic symbol [w]. The pronunciation shown by *Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary* is shown in square brackets.

* power: /ˈpaʊər/ [ˈˈpawɚ]
* rowing: /ˈrəʊɪŋ/ [ˈrowɪŋ]
* sewage: /ˈsuːɪdʒ/ [ˈsuːwɪʤ]. In this case there is not a /w/ phoneme; however the /uː/ is pronounced as [uw] by most people.

Oddity: Rwanda /ruːˈɑːndə, ruːˈændə/

## Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

### Spanish

In Spanish there is no contrast between /w/ and /gw/ (to be fair in English there is very little). Therefore some Spanish speakers will insert a /g/ sound before /w/: "water" pronounced as \*/ˈgwɔːtər/. Others will drop the /g/ in words like "language": /ˈlæŋwɪdʒ/ instead of /ˈlæŋgwɪdʒ/. Dropping the /g/ in this case can be regarded as a variant pronunciation rather than a pronunciation error.

## References

1. ↑ Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary, power

## External links

* British Library, Received Pronunciation consonant sounds