Decoding exercises: "au"

Together with the article on decoding difficulties, this page sets out some common (or not...) words teachers can use to help their students become more aware of how they can sound out more correctly the different sounds corresponding to words containing "au", most often /ɔː/.

Examples
As /ɔː/
 * assault - auction - audience - audio - audit - August - authentic - author - authority - automatic - autumn - caught - cause - clause - daughter - exhaust - fault - fraud - launch - laundry - Laura - naughty - Paul - pause - sauce - taught

As /ɒ/ or /ɔː/
 * Aussie, Australia, Austria, cauliflower

As /ɑː/ or /æ/
 * aunt,, laugh, laughter

The following sounds only appear in loan words.

As /əʊ/
 * aubergine, au gratin, au revoir, au lait, au pair, chauffeur

As /aʊ/.
 * sauerkraut /ˈsaʊərkraʊt/

"eau"

 * as /juː/: beauty, beautiful
 * as /əʊ/: bureau
 * as /ɒ/: bureaucracy
 * as /ə/: bureaucrat

Spelling anomalies

 * As /eɪ/: gauge
 * Silent "au": restaurant /ˈrestrɒnt, ˈrestərənt/

The word "because"
In Received Pronunciation "because" is normally pronounced /bɪˈkɒz/ but it is one of the few instances in which it is possible to have a stressed schwa:

In General American "because" is pronounced /bɪˈkɔz/ or /bɪˈkʌz/. In American English a stressed schwa is pronounced as /ʌ/.

Homophones

 * /ɔː/: aural - oral; clause - claws; pause - paws;
 * General American /æ/: - ant
 * Non-rhotic accents /ɔː/: sauce - source
 * /ɑː, æ/: draught (flow of air) - draft (rough version, flow of air)

Variant pronunciatons

 * astronaut /ˈæstrənɔːt, ˈæstrənɒt/
 * austerity /ɒˈsterəti, ɔˈsterəti /
 * Austin /ˈɒstɪn, ˈɔstɪn, ˈɔstən/
 * Saudi /ˈsaʊdiː, ˈsɔdiː/
 * sauna /ˈsɔnə, ˈsaʊnə/

Spanish L1
Many Spanish speakers (who probably don't hear their teachers, and who also their teachers don't hear them), pronounce "au" as /aʊ/ which is the way "au" sounds in Spanish. For example, "automatización" sounds like or  and it is very common to hear Spanish speakers saying  instead of  Shorter and more common words, such as "cause" or "author" (which also have cognates in Spanish with the sound [aʊ]) apparently don't suffer this problem.