English pronunciation can be difficult as it doesn’t always follow the spelling. We often pronounce the letter /o/ like a short /u/ sound. In the phonetic alphabet, we show this sound as a ʌ. This sounds like the ‘u’ used in the words ‘but’, ‘judge’ or ‘under’.
So London is pronounced Lʌndən, note the schwa sound which replaces the second O, a sort of erh sound.
Of course, it does sometimes on which version of English you speak. For this article I’m using the standard RP or BBC style of English for the pronunciations.
Examples of English Pronunciation of the letter O
There are no rules for when you use the ʌ pronunciation of the letter O. You will just need to remember which words use the ʌ sound and which use the standard letter O sound by memory.
- Above = abʌve
- Another = anʌther
- Brother = brʌther
- Come = cʌme
- Cover = cʌver
- Done = dʌne
- Dozen = dʌzen
- Glove = glʌve
- Government = gʌvernment
- Honey = hʌney
- Love = lʌve
- Mother = mʌther
- Monday = Mʌnday
- Money = mʌney
- Month = mʌnth
- Oven = ʌven
- Shovel = shʌvel
- Some = sʌme
- Worry = wʌrry
PRONOUNCING THE LETTER O
Remember that this post considers the pronunciation, grammar, spelling and vocabulary of the variant of English spoken in London and the South East of England – commonly thought of as standard British English or RP.
Other (ʌther) variants of English may use sometimes different pronunciations.
Getting the pronunciation of the letter O correct will help you sound more fluent in English.
Any questions, leave me a comment or send me an email.
O is pronounced ʌ when it is placed before letters n, m, v and th, except worry and dozen.:)
It depends on the dialect and I don’t just mean between, for example, general British and US English but dialects within the UK. For example, the simple word NO is pronounced with a short O in southern England, a slightly longer on ein RP and in Scotland NO can be pronounced NAE