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au In American English

English Multigraph 'au'

'au' as a digraph has five sounds that we are going to talk about here.

Digraphs are a set of two letters that stand together and produce a new sound.

Digraph	au
Name	au (pronounced /ˈeɪ ˈyou/)
Common Sound(s)	/ɔː/, /ɒ/, /a:/, /əʊ/

The Digraph 'au'

Sound 1: /ɔː/

'au' always comes at the beginning or in the middle of words and it sounds /ɔː/:

Example

sauce /sɔːs/

August /ɔːˈɡʌst/

laundry /ˈlɔːndri/

Sound 2: /ɒ/

'au' also sounds /ɒ/ in the middle or at the beginning of a word:

Example

because /bɪˈkɒz/

sausage /ˈsɒs.ɪdʒ/

Sound 3: /a:/

'au' can stand in the middle or at the beginning of a word and sounds /a:/:

Example

aunt /ɑːnt/

laugh /lɑːf/

Sound 4: /əʊ/

'au' sounds /əʊ/ in French loanwords:

Example

aubergine /ˈəʊ.bə.ʒiːn/

mauve /məʊv/

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