IPA phoneme \əʊ\

In Received Pronunciation and in General American the IPA phonetic symbol **/əʊ/** corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "goat", "note", and "know". The actual sound is [əʊ], [ɜʊ] or [əw] in Received Pronunciation and [oʊ] or [ow] in General American. See IPA phonetic symbol [w].

The habitual notation for General American is **/oʊ/**, however in a broad notation /əʊ/ can be used; it could also be the other way around, using /oʊ/ for both General American and Received Pronunciation. In this website /əʊ/ is used.

In strict IPA diphthongs need an inverted breve under their less prominent vowel: /əʊ̯/ or /oʊ̯/. However in English a single /o/ is never used; this means that in American English /oʊ/ is unambiguously a dipthong. In British English the sequence /ə.ʊ/ (most certainly) doesn't occur, and therefore /əʊ/ can only be interpreted as a diphthong. This means the inverted breve can be omitted in both conventions, British and American.

This diphthong is informally called **“long O”**. A better pronounceable name is **the vowel of GOAT.**

## Common words

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

* with **"o"**+magic e: alone, bone, close, code, episode, hole, home, hope, joke, lone, note, phone, pole, role, smoke, stole, stone, those, vote, whole
* with **"o"**: almost, associate, both, don't, focus, ghost, host, local, moment, most, notice, November, Oct**o**ber, only, open, over, program, social, total, won't

ending in **"o"**: ago, go, no, so
with **"ol"**: control, fold, gold, hold, old, sold, soldier, told
anomalies with **"o"** and a double consonant: gross, poll, roll, toll
* with **"oa"**: approach, boat, coach, coast, coat, goal, goat, load, loan, road, roast, throat, toast
* with **"oe"**: goes, heroes, Joe, potatoes, toe
* with **"ow"**: arrow, below, blow, borrow, bowl, crow, elbow, fellow, flow, follow, grow, grown, growth, know, low, narrow, owe, own, row *(line)*, shadow, show, slow, snow, throw, tomorrow, tow, window, yellow

* with **"ou"**: although, dough, shoulder, soul, though

## Homophones

* groan - grown; hole - whole; know - no; loan - lone; pole - poll; road - rode; role - roll; so - sew - sow; sole - soul; toe - tow;

## Heteronyms

* bow: /bəʊ/ *weapon* - /baʊ/ *inclination;* dove: /dəʊv/ *past tense of* dive; - /dʌv/ *bird;* row: /rəʊ/ *line* - /raʊ/ *quarrel;*

## These words don't rhyme

* go - do; goes - does; home - come; know - cow; road - broad; toe - shoe; alone - abalone;

## Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1

### Spanish

Spanish has many diphthongs with "u" and "i", and the only combinations that don't exist are "iu" [iw] and "ou" [ow].
The lack of [ow] explains why, even if they are fully capable of pronouncing [ow] (and hence /əʊ/) Spanish speakers tend to use the monophthong [o] which is very similar to **/ɒ/**, i.e. without practice, they tend not to distinguish between "not" and "note" or, even between "want" and "won't". At the end of the word they have no problems; the Spanish pronunciation for the loanword *show* is [tʃow].

Many Spanish speakers are confused by the spelling. Even if [ow] is present only in loanwords (and compounds such as *estad**ou**nidense)* they immediately recognize "ou" as [ow]. For this reason many /aʊ/ words may be pronounced with [ow], such as "amount" as \*[əˈmoʊnt] instead of /əˈmaʊnt/. See Decoding and spelling exercises: /əʊ/ vs /aʊ/.

## Notes and references

1. ↑ John Wells, IPA transcription systems for English, 2001-08-03.
2. ↑ Geoff Lindsey, The British English vowel system, 8 March 2012.
3. ↑ List of Spanish diphthongs

	* [Vj]: "ai" as in *baile,* "ei" as in *reina,* "oi" as in *boina,* "ui" as in *cuido*
	* [Vw]: "au" as in *auto,* "eu" as in *Eugenia*
	* [jV]: "ia" as in *viaje,* "ie" as in *ciego,* "io" as in *piojo,* "iu" as in *ciudad*
	* [wV]: "ua" as in *cuadro,* "ue" as in *cuento,* "ui" as in *ruido,* "uo" as in *cuota*

## See also

* Decoding written words
* Decoding exercises: "ow"
* Decoding and spelling exercises: /əʊ/ vs /aʊ/
* Decoding the letter O
* Decoding exercises: /əʊl/
* Pronunciation exercises: /əʊ/ vs /ɒ/
* Magic e

## External links

* British Library, Vowel sounds of Received Pronunciation