phonics question - short o sound in the word dog

[AngelaNYC]

Queens, New York here. DOG and HOT have completely different sounds. Phonics books are a nightmare.

. Fuggedduhboudit.

[Rosie_0801]

Good gracious! Who taught your country to speak English? :svengo:

 

 

Except you, SCGS, you almost talk properly. :tongue_smilie:(Sorry Mergath :D)

The things I do while DH is out of town. :001_rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UiGFlwMKAQ

 

 

:auto:

[Marylou]

Okay, I don't know if I can help, but I do get what the OP is saying since I was born and raised in MA and married a guy from the Midwest.

 

DH's name is John.

 

In MA we pronounce his name "JAWN"-rhymes with yawn, but in the Midwest it would be pronounced "JAUN" like the word "AUNT" [pronounced the New England way (IOW not "ant")] with a "J" in front.

[Laura Corin]

Perhaps it's because I'm Canadian, but I pronounce all those words, log, dog, mop, toss and so on, the same. A short o sound is always awww around here. I guess I never really thought about it.

 

But not an 'aw' sound. It's.... well.... a short 'o' sound! It's clipped compared to North American pronunciation.

 

Laura

[momma2owen29]

Okay, I don't know if I can help, but I do get what the OP is saying since I was born and raised in MA and married a guy from the Midwest.

 

DH's name is John.

 

In MA we pronounce his name "JAWN"-rhymes with yawn, but in the Midwest it would be pronounced "JAUN" like the word "AUNT" [pronounced the New England way (IOW not "ant")] with a "J" in front.

 

Perfect! Thank you!!

[stripe]

In MA we pronounce his name "JAWN"-rhymes with yawn, but in the Midwest it would be pronounced "JAUN" like the word "AUNT" [pronounced the New England way (IOW not "ant")] with a "J" in front.

 

I don't understand this. I don't understand this whole thread. Except a really exaggerated "dawg" sound....these seem the same to me!

 

But my SIL made fun of me for not using a long "o" in the word "shop." :lol: I am still chuckling about that.

[Marylou]

Perfect! Thank you!!

 

You're welcome! I was married four years before my husband told me I said his name wrong :tongue_smilie:. Now I just call him "Honey".

[Marylou]

I don't understand this. I don't understand this whole thread. Except a really exaggerated "dawg" sound....these seem the same to me!

 

But my SIL made fun of me for not using a long "o" in the word "shop." :lol: I am still chuckling about that.

 

Do you know how to say "AUNT" in New England?

 

Is your SIL from London :D?

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

nope, we're actually yankees! :) i think i'm explaining this all wrong. sorry! let me try again...

 

we pronounce it dawg. and that's how we hear it... with an awww sound in the middle. but the spelling, with the correct short o sound, makes us pronounce it incorrectly... d-ahhh-g. make sense?

 

Are you in Ohio? :lol: We say dawg (dog) and lawg (log), but also say f-ahhh-x (fox) and m-ahhh-p (mop).

 

My friend from Rochester, NY, says them all like ahhhh, so he says d-ahh-g.

 

My friend from Baltimore says them all with and aw sound, so she says f-aw-x for fox.

 

It all depends where you come from. I would tell your kid that different parts of the country pronounce things differently, and maybe give him a separate phonics lessons for the words you pronounce with an "aw" sound.

[momma2owen29]

Are you in Ohio? :lol: We say dawg (dog) and lawg (log), but also say f-ahhh-x (fox) and m-ahhh-p (mop).

 

My friend from Rochester, NY, says them all like ahhhh, so he says d-ahh-g.

 

My friend from Baltimore says them all with and aw sound, so she says f-aw-x for fox.

 

It all depends where you come from. I would tell your kid that different parts of the country pronounce things differently, and maybe give him a separate phonics lessons for the words you pronounce with an "aw" sound.

 

We're just outside of Chicago and we pronounce the words just like you... dawg (dog) and f-ahhh-x (fox). Two totally different sounds for the short o. Thank you for the comparison between the different dialects... Very helpful! I'm just glad there are others who can hear the difference, as well... I really thought I was going crazy there for awhile! ;)

Edited August 22, 2012 by momma2owen29

[stripe]

Do you know how to say "AUNT" in New England?

 

 

How is aunt different from yawn? That's what I don't understand.

[hsbaby]

Maybe I'm not getting the difference between aw and ah. Both, to me, are like the sound you make when the doctor says to open up and say ahhhh (or aww). Unless you're meaning ahhh as in the short a sound. But, then I'm still confused because I don't hear a short a sound in any of these words (except aunt....I say ant, not awww-nt)

[SorrelZG]

OK, I'm still not hearing the difference in how I say "o" in ox and dog AS MUCH as say, "d-aw-g" in the NY accent video (I am not that bad when I say "coffee", but I digress) but DH told me a while back that we needed to work with our son on saying his own name. It has a short "o" in it and a lady who had asked him his name thought he had pronounced it with an "aw" sound instead of a short "o" and wasn't able to make sense of his name (a familiar word). I couldn't really hear it when my son said his own name but I could when DH mimicked him because it was different to how DH usually says DS's name but THIS must be what DH was talking about (and DS is getting it from me :lol:).

[AdventureMoms]

DW says she can hear the difference when she says it but not when I say it. She also hears it in both videos. She theorizes that it is the "o" sound getting clipped at the back of the mouth as you move the mouth to make the "g" sound. She hears it in all the "og" words. Apparently I don't do it even though the videos sound fine to me. Maybe I just don't have a good ear. :-)

[Laura Corin]

How is aunt different from yawn? That's what I don't understand.

 

Aunt says Ah

Yawn says Aw.

 

The former makes my mouth very open (as if at the dentist). For the latter, my mouth closes a bit and my lips purse forward.

 

Laura

[TravelingChris]

I didn't have any problems with phonics on those points since they all sound the same to me but I always had to correct the wh because at least some phonics said they said different from the w and it doesn't when dh and I say those words.

[stripe]

Aunt says Ah

Yawn says Aw.

 

The former makes my mouth very open (as if at the dentist). For the latter, my mouth closes a bit and my lips purse forward.

 

Laura

Well, not for me! ha ha. To me, they're the same sound. Or so similar I can't differentiate. For what it's worth, I have been known to slightly correcting my husband's vowel sounds, so I thought I was picky. :glare:

 

I am starting to wonder when I use the "aw" sound at all.

 

I know only one person who says "wh" distinctly from "w." I am not that person. To me it sounds a bit ... obnoxious. Anyway I told my kids about it and told them to listen careful to their relative to hear it in action.

[Carrie12345]

Maybe I'm not getting the difference between aw and ah. Both, to me, are like the sound you make when the doctor says to open up and say ahhhh (or aww). Unless you're meaning ahhh as in the short a sound. But, then I'm still confused because I don't hear a short a sound in any of these words (except aunt....I say ant, not awww-nt)

 

 

Aw, in Jersey speak, sounds like the o in coy. Just stop short before the y.

Coy, boy, coffee, dog, walk, talk, bought, caught, call, ball, all, Paul, straw, flaw, all have the same "aw" sound. In north Jersey.

[DB in NJ]

Sounds right to me! I'm from Philly now living in Jersey. We say dawg too. Just teach him that technically, the o in dog sounds the same as the o in hot. We just have our own special way of saying it ;)

[DB in NJ]

Here's a little test:

 

Do the words rhyme: don -- dawn

 

If you said yes they rhyme, you probably won't get the op's dilemma. In my world, they sound completely different. My husband is from Iowa; to him they sound exactly the same (we call how he speaks Iowegian).

[Matryoshka]

Yep, here father rhymes with bother. They are basically the same sound.

 

Heck, no. Father has an "ah" sound, bother has an "o" sound, like fox and dog, (and both caught and cot, which are identically pronounced to me) which is more akin to "aw" but not as drawn out. Like you were going to say "aw" but got surprised and clipped it off short.

 

Short "o" sounds nothing like "ah". :confused:

 

Yankee in MA here. :D

[Matryoshka]

Here's a little test:

 

Do the words rhyme: don -- dawn. If you said yes they rhyme, you probably won't get the op's dilemma.

 

Yep, those sound identical. :D

 

But on the other hand, here "marry, Mary, and merry" all sound completely different - I hear other places they're all the same...

[DB in NJ]

Yep, those sound identical. :D

 

But on the other hand, here "marry, Mary, and merry" all sound completely different - I hear other places they're all the same...

 

YES!! Those 3 words have completely different sounds! Not according to my hubby though ;)

[stripe]

Heck, no. Father has an "ah" sound, bother has an "o" sound, like fox and dog, (and both caught and cot, which are identically pronounced to me) which is more akin to "aw" but not as drawn out. Like you were going to say "aw" but got surprised and clipped it off short.

 

 

I don't understand this. This is not how I talk.

 

I say merry, marry, and Mary differently, and pin and pen distinctly.

 

This person thinks brother rhymes with father. Um? No! And smoother? :001_huh:

 

This blurb in wikipedia makes me want to never speak again...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_low_back_vowels

[Amy in NH]

Aunt says Ah

Yawn says Aw.

 

The former makes my mouth very open (as if at the dentist). For the latter, my mouth closes a bit and my lips purse forward.

 

Laura

 

I think aunt and yawn both use aw; aw = au. Apple has the ah sound.

 

What do you hear in your mind's-ear when someone says, "Ahhhhhhhh!"? I hear that "a" as in apple.

[Matryoshka]

I think aunt and yawn both use aw; aw = au. Apple has the ah sound.

 

What do you hear in your mind's-ear when someone says, "Ahhhhhhhh!"? I hear that "a" as in apple.

 

LOL. I pronounce the a in apple like ant, but not like aunt. Unless I'm talking about my Aunt Somebody. Weird thing about growing up in New England but having all my extended family elsewhere. I say my aunt (awnt), Aunt (ant) Somebody. Very confusing.

 

And "father" to me has the 'ah' sound that is distinct from both.

 

Bother and Brother don't rhyme either - bother has the 'aw", brother has more of an 'uh', like mother.

[Marylou]

Here's a little test:

 

Do the words rhyme: don -- dawn

 

If you said yes they rhyme, you probably won't get the op's dilemma. In my world, they sound completely different. My husband is from Iowa; to him they sound exactly the same (we call how he speaks Iowegian).

 

 

Yes. That is the test :001_smile:!

 

Think about it . . . the reason we have different accents around the country is related to how we pronounce the VOWELS differently not the consonants. I have lived in so many different places, I don't know what I sound like to other folks!

 

ETA: well, I guess you Bostonians leave R sounds off the ends of words and add them where they don't belong in other words, too!

Edited August 22, 2012 by dmmosher

[Marylou]

Now people who pronounce WATER with two "R" sounds--that I do not understand!

[kitten18]

Well, not for me! ha ha. To me, they're the same sound. Or so similar I can't differentiate. For what it's worth, I have been known to slightly correcting my husband's vowel sounds, so I thought I was picky. :glare:

 

I am starting to wonder when I use the "aw" sound at all.

 

:iagree:

[Dory]

Heck, no. Father has an "ah" sound, bother has an "o" sound, like fox and dog, (and both caught and cot, which are identically pronounced to me) which is more akin to "aw" but not as drawn out. Like you were going to say "aw" but got surprised and clipped it off short.

 

Short "o" sounds nothing like "ah". :confused:

 

Yankee in MA here. :D

 

 

:lol::lol::lol: I've started steering conversations with others just to get them to say Father and bother so I can see if they say if differently.

[DB in NJ]

Now people who pronounce WATER with two "R" sounds--that I do not understand!

 

Umm....around here, we pronounce it as wooder ;)

 

:auto:

[Marylou]

Umm....around here, we pronounce it as wooder ;)

 

:auto:

 

And . . . I'm outta here :leaving:

 

Off to check out "I will not start fights on the internet"

[Rosie_0801]

But not an 'aw' sound. It's.... well.... a short 'o' sound! It's clipped compared to North American pronunciation.

 

Laura

 

Yep. There's no a in o! :lol:

[Laura Corin]

I think aunt and yawn both use aw; aw = au. Apple has the ah sound.

 

What do you hear in your mind's-ear when someone says, "Ahhhhhhhh!"? I hear that "a" as in apple.

 

Ahh is a long sound like the vowel in 'art'. Apple is a short sound.

 

Laura

[Laura Corin]

Now people who pronounce WATER with two "R" sounds--that I do not understand!

 

Do I get a prize?

 

Laura

[Jann in TX]

Just like there are regional differences in other languages like Spanish- (compare South America, Mexico and Spain-- some basic words are VERY different in spelling AND in pronunciation!).

 

There is NOT a 'standard' American English pronunciation/phonics for spoken words. There are 'guides' but not a standard.

 

This is one of the main problems in teaching reading to rural and inner-city Americans (other regional groups too!). The 'standard' phonics texts show pronunciations that are FOREIGN to these students. Trying to teach reading by a phonetic 'standard' that does not match the student's spoken language can be unnecessarily cumbersome. There are just some words that are better off being taught as 'sight words' due to spoken word discrepancies.

 

There ARE standards when it comes to the WRITTEN word (talking about American English here). Students with regional spoken differences may have trouble understanding spelling that is 'phonics based'... again they will need to learn some words by sight/association.

 

I would NOT confuse an early reader over how to read 'dog' (meaning with a 'ah' or 'aw'). It is a waste of time and can be very discouraging to the student. Teach the student to read the word as they would normally say it!

 

I'm all for teaching Phonics-- but I have also lived/taught in regions where Phonics was NOT the best way to teach students how to read/spell... it is a tool but not the end all.

[stripe]

I think also different accents have different interpretations of what sounds are associated with what letters. For example, as I recall, Jolly Phonics has some business about words ending in r, that reflects the dropping of the "r" sound, consistent with their style of British English.

[MamaJeanne]

This thread has been making me talk more to myself than usual! As a west coast girl I could not even understand the op's question since ah and aw are pronounced exactly the same for me! :) But after listening to the videos and remembering relatives' accents, I realized that to my ears, the "aw" sound that some of you describe sounds to me like a long o sound followed by a short o sound all smooshed together really fast. And that is the end of my analysis :tongue_smilie: It is pretty interesting how differently the spoken words vary between people.

[momma2owen29]

Here's a little test:

 

Do the words rhyme: don -- dawn

 

If you said yes they rhyme, you probably won't get the op's dilemma. In my world, they sound completely different. My husband is from Iowa; to him they sound exactly the same (we call how he speaks Iowegian).

 

yup, completely different sounds for me too! good test!!

[LadyR]

(Jumping in not having read the whole thread.)

 

Many New Englanders have their own unique pronunciations which I haven't heard anywhere else. We say dawg. Trying to think of a way to type how it actually sounds... Like if you were saying "Aww, you're so sweet!" That aww is the sound in dog. We usually leave the end off most words. Cah instead of car and watuh for water (water has that same aww sound as in dog). I've personally worked to not have this accent as I don't particularly like it. Funny, Boston is just 1 hour away but Bostonians have a different accent from us.

Edited August 23, 2012 by LadyNancy

[fraidycat]

This thread confuses me.

 

ALL of these words have the exact same vowel sound to me:

 

caught

cot

yawn

fox

log

dog

saw

paw

don

dawn

pawn

 

I could go ON for a LONG time with the list.

 

They all say AW, as in "AW, look at the cute little kitten." Or Luke, I am your FATHER.

 

Every single one has the same sound to me. And people try say *I* have an accent. LOL :tongue_smilie:

[Free]

 

Good gracious! Who taught your country to speak English? :svengo:

:lol: IKR? It is amusing to me that an English speaking country has so much trouble with these basic English sounds!! :tongue_smilie:

[lailasmum]

I have an rp english accent (with a twinge of London & Devon) but mostly rp, so to me the dog log hog fox bother etc all have the same short o sound. I found this video of a lady on You tube as an

.

 

Father is like this

And water is amonst these.

 

Since we use mostly american phonics resources I am forever having to tell my kids that we pronounce things differently. We have found lists in books that supposedly rhyme that don't in our accent. Starfall is one where I am forever correcting it to our accents. Little kids saying words with a piratey ahhhhh type sound rather than the short o we use does make everything sound the same.

Edited August 23, 2012 by lailasmum

[IsabelC]

OK, being Strine, we have a different set of slightly "off" words. Eg for us, all short o words rhyme, but we run into complications with the a sound because fast and gasp don't sound anything like fat and gap. But it doesn't actually faze the kids. I just say something like "yes, it does look like fast. That's how American people would say it, but we say fahst here." If what they have sounded out doesn't seem like a word they know, they know to try something else close to it. Could you try something similar?

[funschooler5]

All right. Here's mine:

 

 

 

This is how I sound too.

 

Between the ox/box and the log/dog? I keep repeating hot and hog to myself and you know, I may hear a slightly longer "o" when followed by the "g". I tried it with dot and dog, too. Father has a completely different sound though and so does saw. :tongue_smilie:

 

I do recall being mistaken for a Yankee once when ordering coffee.

 

Now, you sound almost British to me. I can hear the difference when you say it.

 

To me, Don and dawn sound the same. Now that I think about it, the only time I say the "aw" sound is when I'm exaggerating it like "Awww, look at that cute puppy!" I'm thinking of other "aw" words like draw and straw, and they rhyme with cot, dog, father, etc. Although I do tend to mash up the sounds in "dr" words (draw, drawer, and drop would be jrah, jrore, and jrop).

 

And here I thought I didn't have an accent because I'm from the Pacific NW. :lol:

[Rosie_0801]

OK, being Strine,

 

 

You said "Strine!" :rofl:

[KidsHappen]

I don't understand this. This is not how I talk.

 

I say merry, marry, and Mary differently, and pin and pen distinctly.

 

This person thinks brother rhymes with father. Um? No! And smoother? :001_huh:

 

This blurb in wikipedia makes me want to never speak again...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_low_back_vowels

 

Oh dear goodness, I agree. That was way more than I wanted to learn about vowels this early in the morning. I have taken a few tests ovver the years, all of which have told me that I have no accent what-so-ever. This is probably due to being a military brat and moving every two or three years for the first three and a half decades of my life.

 

I can't recall living anywhere where father and brother rhymed. To me mother and brother rhyme but the vowel in father sounds entirely different. Almost like saying farther but removing the "r". As far as all the other short "o"s (fox, box, mop, stop, log, dog) they all sound the same to me.

 

All the variations of merry sound the same to me. Not sure where that came from. It is very difficult for me to clearly pronounce the difference between pin and pen. I can hear it but I have to work really hard to pronounce it. I also sometimes end up with an "r" in my wash. I know that one came from TX.

 

I used 100 Easy Lessons with my kids and I can only remember a couple of words that weren't pronounced as they were spelled and those were usually pointed out. I just told my kids that those were special words and that they just had to memorize them. They didn't have any problem with that at all. I found that if there was a difference between the way something should be pronounced and the way I pronounced it, I taught the children the correct way and then they usually made the connection that it was the same word and slowly transitioned to pronouncing it the same way I did while still spelling it correctly.

 

ETA: I see that many people are saying father/bother which IMO do rhyme but stripe said brother which does not rhyme with father but mother.

Edited August 23, 2012 by KidsHappen

[stripe]

I also sometimes end up with an "r" in my wash. I know that one came from TX.

:) That one makes me smile. I have a beloved relative who says that, too.

 

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder how differently my marry/mary/merry s really are! I think merry and Mary are the same, and marry may be different. :huh:

[Matryoshka]

Many New Englanders have their own unique pronunciations which I haven't heard anywhere else. We say dawg. Trying to think of a way to type how it actually sounds... Like if you were saying "Aww, you're so sweet!" That aww is the sound in dog. We usually leave the end off most words. Cah instead of car and watuh for water (water has that same aww sound as in dog). I've personally worked to not have this accent as I don't particularly like it. Funny, Boston is just 1 hour away but Bostonians have a different accent from us.

 

I do not have a "Boston accent" at all in one sense - my parents are from Florida and California. I never, never, drop my "r's" or add them where not necessary (although if I'm speaking to someone with a strong Boston accent, I can pick it up a bit - but I can also start to get a bit of a southern drawl when talking to a southerner - I'm a bit of a parrot, and this happens unconsciously).

 

However, there was an online "accent test" that didn't ask about consonants at all but only vowels (like do "don" and "dawn" rhyme, and do "marry, Mary, and merrry" sound different) and it pegged me as being from near Boston with no problem. Go figure.

[Laurie4b]

nope, we're actually yankees! :) i think i'm explaining this all wrong. sorry! let me try again...

 

we pronounce it dawg. and that's how we hear it... with an awww sound in the middle. but the spelling, with the correct short o sound, makes us pronounce it incorrectly... d-ahhh-g. make sense?

 

d aahh g is the correct pronunciation. You are dealing with an accent. No matter where we live, we always have some of that in our phonics.

 

Just tell your child people in your area pronounce these words with an accent, and not as they are supposed to be pronounced. Either do not use "dog" and others you pronounce with an accent as an initial cvcor other short o words that you pronounce as "aw" words, or use an exaggerated and correct pronunciation for purposes of spelling. (You can do this with other words as well: say them as they are spelled, not as they are pronounced, such as tom-or-row for tomorrow.)