Spelfabet

13 thoughts on “o”

1. Theresa Wolf Wilson April 18, 2018 at 2:06 am

   Is letter ‘a’ in the word ‘all’ said with a short ‘o’ sound?

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   1. alison Post authorApril 20, 2018 at 9:46 am

      It depends on your accent. In Australian English, it’s an “or” sound like in “for”, “saw” and “walk”.

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      1. Liliana June 10, 2019 at 8:11 am

         Is there any guide regarding this sound? Like before r and w, is always or sometimes? Does “al “. has the long o sound as in all, already, always?

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         1. alison Post authorJune 10, 2019 at 12:38 pm

            I don’t entirely understand your question, this is the “short o” sound. I think the problem is that you probably don’t have an Australian accent, so the vowel classification on this site will sometimes not make sense to you. Can you refer to a website written for the accent you speak?

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            1. Liliana June 12, 2019 at 12:31 pm

               Thanks Alison, I do live in Australia and trying very hard to improve my accent so that can be understood. I was talking about the long “o” sound as in law, all. When should I make that sound?
            2. alison Post authorJune 12, 2019 at 12:40 pm

               Hi Liliana, the words that are typically pronounced as in “law” and “all” are all on these lists, there are about a dozen common spellings. http://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/aw/
2. Nathan May 28, 2019 at 1:31 pm

   How about the ‘oh’ in ‘ohm’?
   And ‘teraohm’ could apply too?

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   1. alison Post authorMay 28, 2019 at 8:02 pm

      I do have it listed, see http://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/oh/oh-as-in-doh

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3. Vicky Gammon September 20, 2020 at 11:14 am

   Hi,
   I’m trying to work out how to teach the spelling of ‘what’. Should I relate it to the words that begin with ‘wa’ and have the short o sound? Google isn’t helping me.

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   1. alison Post authorSeptember 20, 2020 at 4:59 pm

      I usually tell kids two things about “what”:
      1. It’s a question word and these mostly start with ‘wh’ as in when, where, why, which and of course who (but not how). I tell them we pronounce the W in most of these words but the H in who, because English is a bit of an old weird language, sorry, not my fault. Then we practise some ‘wh’ words.
      2. After the sound /w/ we usually write /o/ with letter A, as in was, want, wallet, wander, swan, quantity and quality. In the olden days the pronunciation would have matched the spelling better but over time pronunciation changes, sorry, again not my fault. Then we practise some words with this spelling pattern.
      This seems to work OK, for some kids the two patterns can be addressed at once but others need to do them one at a time. Hope that’s useful. Alison

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4. Vicky September 23, 2020 at 12:33 am

   Thanks so much; yes, that was very helpful!

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5. ellen February 4, 2023 at 10:06 pm

   Just wondering about yacht?

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   1. alison Post authorFebruary 7, 2023 at 6:28 pm

      Hi Ellen, ‘yacht’ is probably one of those rare words with spelling that mostly has to be explained by its etymology, and remembered by saying it a funny way (spelling voice) because the phonology and morphology are not a lot of help. The ‘a’ is like in ‘want’ and ‘was’, which is fairly common though it usually occurs after /w/ not /y/, but the cht is Dutch and not in any other words in English, as far as I know. Luckily it’s not a word most of us have to use much! Alison

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