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as in <NO> and as in <NOW> Listen
Listen: These sounds have many variants in English, but a native speaker will always make a clear distinction between the two. Norwegians sometimes mix the two, partly because of spelling problems (see spelling box), and partly because we do not have a similar sound pair in our own language. Listen to the following word pairs, and make a clear distinction between the words in each pair:
-------------
no --------------- now
phoned --------- found
tone ------------- town
show her ------- shower
coach ----------- couch
arose ----------- arouseListen and read:
"I said 'now', not 'no'!"
"You're so loud, Joe."
"I can't wait forever, you know."
"I just need to put on my coat. It's cold outside."
"You're joking. - Oh, no, it's snowing."-------
"Who was that person on the phone just now?"
"It was Mr Brown downstairs. He'd seen a mouse down in the basement."
"Oh no, he's an old clown. Don't listen to him, Joan. He's probably not sober."
"And he'd heard some sounds."
"Oh, come on now! He probably heard our row an hour ago."
Regional variants:
A: In many British accents, notably in northern areas, the -sound comes out as a long monophthong, so that boat becomes . In American English it is a diphthong, but pronounced in a different way than the standard British variant. It is normally transcribed as in , which indicates the difference.B: Many British accents, in particular broad dialects in the Northeast of England and in Scotland, have the pronounced with an -sound, so that cow becomes and town becomes !
SPELLING BOX:
: <o>, <oa>, <ou>, <ow>
go, goat, soul, tow: <ou>, <ow>
mouse, cowNote that both sounds can be represented by <ou> and <ow>, which may cause problems
