Decoding and spelling exercises: "o" adjacent to "m", "n", "v" or "w"

IPA phoneme /əʊ/ Open-mid back unrounded vowel Open back rounded vowel The letter O has three main pronunciations when it is adjacent to M, N, V or W, as in cover, as in poverty and as in over.

As /ɒ/

{{{1}}} See main article IPA phoneme /ɒ/.

• O adjacent to "m": bomb, compact (adj., n.), economy, model, modern, promise, prompt
• O adjacent to "m" and "n": economic
• O adjacent to "m" and "v": vomit
• O adjacent to "m" and "w": wombat
• O adjacent to "n": beyond, bond, contact, contract (n.), on, response, technology, upon
• O adjacent to "n" and "v": novel
• O adjacent to "n" and "w": wonton
• O adjacent to "v": involve, poverty, volcano, volume, volunteer

As /ɒ/^BrE or /ɔː/^AmE

• along, gone, long

As /ʌ/

See main article IPA phoneme /ʌ/.

• O adjacent to "m": accomplish^BrE - Colombia - come - comfort - comfortable /ˈkʌmftəbəl, ˈkʌmfərtəbəl/ - company - compass - mother - some - stomach
• O adjacent to "m" and "n": among - Monday - money - mongrel - monk - monkey - month
• O adjacent to "n": another - confrontation - done - front - honey - London - none - nothing - one /wʌn/ - once /wʌns/ - onion /ˈʌnjən/ - son - sponge - ton - tongue - tonne
• O adjacent to "n" and "w": won - wonder - wonderful
• O adjacent to "v": above - Coventry /ˈkʌvəntriː, ˈkɒvəntriː/ - cover - covet - discover - dove (bird) - glove - government - love - lover - oven - shovel - slovenly

As /əʊ/

See main article IPA phoneme /əʊ/.

• O adjacent to "m": emotion, mobile, moment, most, motivate, promote, promotion, smoke
• O adjacent to "n": alone, bone, don't, no, noble, notable, notion, phone, stone, won't, zone
• O adjacent to "v": dove (past tense of dive), vote
• O adjacent to "w": awoke, wove, woven

As /uː/

• tomb, move, movie, two, womb

As /ʊ/

• wolf, woman

Spelling anomaly

• As /ɪ/: women

"Cor"

In this section we will see words spelled with "Cor", where C is "m", "n", "v" or "w".

As /ɔː/

• O adjacent to "m": more, morning
• O adjacent to "n": ignore, normal, north
• O adjacent to "v": divorce
• O adjacent to "w": swore, sworn, wore, worn

As /ɒ,^BrE ɑː^AmE/

• tomorrow

As /ɒ,^BrE ɔː^AmE/

• minority, moral

As /ɜː/

• word, work, worm, worse, worship, worst, worth

As /ʌ,^BrE ɜː^AmE/

• worry

Variant pronunciations

• accomplish: /əˈkʌmplɪʃ^BrE, əˈkɒmplɪʃ^AmE/
• Coventry /ˈkʌvəntriː, ˈkɒvəntriː/
• from /frəm, frɒm, frʌm^AmE/
• hover: /ˈhɒvər,^BrE ˈhʌvər^AmE/
• monetary: /ˈmɒnɪteriː,^AmE ˈmʌnɪtriː^BrE/

See also

• Decoding the letter O
• Pronunciation exercises: /ʌ/ vs /ɒ/