Diphthong /oʊ/

 

/oʊ/ 

/oʊ/ begins with /o/ then glides into /ʊ/. The diphthong /oʊ/ is an American sound in that, in British English, /əʊ/ is used instead of /oʊ/. So instead of schwa, the American diphthong begins with the back rounded vowel /o/. 

/oʊ/ words

Some common words with /oʊ/ include the following:

 with “o”: 

alone, bone, close, code, episode, hole, home, hope, joke, lone, note, phone, pole, role, smoke, stole, stone, those, vote, whole, focus, ghost, host, local, moment, most, notice, only, open, over, program, social, total, won't, ago, go, no, so

with "ol": 

control, fold, gold, hold, old, sold, soldier, told

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, shadow, show, slow, snow, throw, tomorrow, tow, window

with "ou": 

although, dough, shoulder, soul, though

/oʊ/ homophones

These are /oʊ/ homophones

groan - grown 

hole - whole

know - no

loan - lone 

pole - poll

road - rode 

role - roll

so - sew - sow 

sole - soul - Seoul

toe - tow 

 

/oʊ/ sentences

These are sentences with /oʊ/ sound:

Goats and potatoes grow so slowly.

The ghosts on the boat won’t go.

Only Joe noticed the smoking soldier.

Both narrow houses owned by the coach are sold 

The shadow of the pole can approach the stone.

Most of the fellows need a loan to buy a phone.

/oʊ/, /aʊ/ minimal pairs

arose, arouse 

float, flout 

phoned, found

foal, foul 

poach, pouch

boat, bout 

groaned, ground 

clone, clown 

hole, howl 

sew, sow

coach, couch 

hose, house (verb) 

so, sow (noun)

crowed, crowd 

know, now 

oat, out

devote, devout 

load, loud 

tone, town

/oʊ/, /ɔr/ minimal pairs

/oʊ/ and /ɔr/ can sound similar, and the difference is often subtle. So let’s master them by examining some minimal pairs. 

bow, bore

oh, or

owe, or

so, sore

folk, fork

know, nor

mow, more

poke, pork

chose, chores

doe, door

dome, dorm

doze, doors

moaning, morning

snow, snore

stow, store

toe, tore

tone, torn

cone, corn

bode, bored

bow, bore

coke, cork

scone, scorn

In this chapter we learned the vowels of standard American English. In the next chapter we learn consonant sounds.