Check your knowledge

Exercise 1. Mark the stresses in the following words.

Ventilator, aggressive, elegant, develop, occupy, compensate, undertake, imagine, important, magnetic, respective, enormous, unify, Mexico, institute, asteroid, fertilizer, military, considerable, operator.

Lesson 8 Diagraphs

Diagraphs are combinations of two letters pronounced as one phoneme. Diagraphs can be vowel and consonant.

Vowel Diagraphs

Diagraphs	Sound Values	Examples
ai, ay	[eI]	maid, may
ei, ey	[eI]	weight, grey
oi, oy	[OI]	voice, boy
oa	[qu]	coal
ee	[i:]	bee
ea	[i:] [e] before d, th (more often) [ei]	beat, sea bread, weather + health, measure, pleasant; BUT read, lead great, break, steak
oo	[u:] at the end of the words and before the consonants except k, d, t – [u]	too, moon, room, roof BUT [u] look, foot, good, stood, wood, food
ou ow	[au] [A] [(j)u:] [qu] in the end of the words	now, loud country, courage youth, group, soup window, yellow
au, aw	[L]	autumn, lawn
eu, ew	[ju:] [u:] after [l], [r], [d ]	few, neutral grew, flew, jewel
ie, ye	[aI] [i:] before the consonants	bye, tie piece, believe, field ! If the letter c you spy write the e before the i: receive, perceive
oe, ow	[qu] ow is not reduced in the unstressed syllables	toe, Moscow
ue, ui	[ju:] [u:] after [r], [l], [d ]	issue, suit blue, true, juice

Consonant Diagraphs

Diagraph	Principal sound value	Additional sound value
sh	[S] ship, wish
ck	[k] pick
ch	[C] chalk	[k] chemistry, scholarship [S] machine
ph	[f] phrase, photo
th	[T] thin, thick [D] in secondary parts of speech, pronouns, when it takes intervocal final position in a word: e.g. them, with, bathe	[t] Thames, Thomas
wh	[w] why, while	[h] before o: e.g. whole, who
wr	[r] write, wrong
gh	[-] eight, weigh	[f] cough, rough [g] ghost
kn	[n] knife, know
ng	[N] king, long
nk	[Nk] pink, drink
j	[G] January, joy

Ways of Pronunciation of Certain Letter Combinations

1) o + m, n, v, th = [A] e.g. love, month, mother, come BUT move, prove, approve, woman, proverb, honour

2) w, qu + a = [wL], [kwL] e.g. wash, quality

3) w, qu + ar = [wL], [kwL] e.g. war, quarter

4) w + or = [E:] e.g. word, work

5) i + gh = [aI] e.g. light, night

6) o + ld, nd = [qu] e.g. cold

7) i + ld, nd = [aI] e.g. mind, mild

8) -ture [Cq] e.g. future, picture

9) au, ou + ght = [L] e.g. caught, ought

10) the letter k is always the third after or before a vowel e.g. luck, knight

11) the letter h is always the fourth after the vowel e.g. bench, watch

12) -tion, -ssion [Sn] e.g. emotion, impression

13) -sure [Zq] e.g. treasure

14) -sion [Zn] e.g. decision

15) ea + -sure = [e] e.g. pleasure

16) a vowel in an unstressed position is pronounced either as [q] or as [I] e.g. decide, several, lofty

17) a vowel in a stressed position before -le is read as in the alphabet e.g. table, title, cycle