Pronunciation exercises: /əʊ/ vs /ɒ/

Together with the page possible pronunciation difficulties, this page sets out some common words teachers can use to help their students become more aware of how they can improve their pronunciation of the vowel sounds /əʊ/ and /ɒ/.

/ɒ/ is a monophthong and /əʊ/ is a diphthong. Both sounds are not very similar, but their spelling may be the same (as in doll and roll).

Words marked with * are pronounced with /ɔː/ in many places of the United States (particularly in General American).

Spelling
/ɒ/ is always followed by one or more consonants. In derived words a single consonant is usually doubled (hop, hopping; rot, rotten).

/əʊ/

 * with "oa": boat - coast - coat - foam - goal - toast
 * with "ow": bowl - own
 * with "o" and magic e: bone - choke - close - cone - gnome - hole - home - hope - phone - Rome - stone - tone - vote
 * with "o": both - mobile - notable - only - open - over - program
 * with "ol": cold - control - fold - gold - hold - old - poll - roll - sold - told
 * with "os": ghost - host - most
 * with "ou": shoulder - soul

homophones: hole - whole; loan - lone; poll - pole; roll - role; soul - sole;

When /əʊ/ is at the end of the word there is no possibility of confusion, because /ɒ/ is always followed by a consonant.
 * with "ow": blow, flow, know, low, show, snow, throw
 * with "o": ago, also, go, potato, video
 * with "ou": although, though

/ɒ/

 * with "o": doll - golf* - hot - lot - off* - on* - stop - top;
 * with "ong"*: long - song - strong - wrong;
 * others: gone* - knowledge - want* - what.

/əʊ/ vs /ɒ/

 * Minimal pairs: coast - cost;* coma - comma; hope - hop; Joan - John; modal - model; note - not; owed - odd; own - on;* Pope - pop; won't - want;*
 * These words don't rhyme: gross - boss;* most - lost;* roll - doll;
 * Other: go - gone;* gold - golf;* Joe - John; know - knowledge; no - not; program - problem;

Variant pronunciations

 * holistic: /həʊˈlɪstɪk, hɒˈlɪstɪk/
 * productivity: /prɒdʌkˈtɪvətiː, ˌproʊdʌkˈtɪvətiː/
 * progress: /ˈprəʊɡres, ˈprɒgrs, ˈprɒgrəs/
 * shone: /ʃɒn, ʃəʊn/

Spanish L1
Spanish does not have the diphthong "ou", but most people have no problem pronouncing show when speaking Spanish as [tʃou]. On the other hand, since the diphthong does not exist, it is normal to drop the [u] sound. For example póster for "poster", eslogan for "slogan", gol for "goal" (score) and jonrón for "home run" (baseball jargon). Most Spanish speakers can be educated into pronouncing correctly the /əʊ/ sound, either as [əʊ], [əu], [oʊ] or [ou].

The main problem is the spelling. Words such as "gold" or "host" are much more likely to be pronounced incorrectly than "boat" or "home".