how to spell: -gh- words - the spelling & pronunciation

More free lessons on howtospell.co.uk and in this video we're looking at words with the difficult letter patterns -gh- in them. We use -gh- in very common words like: though, right, daughter, weigh, cough, brought, enough...And use it in common letter patterns: -ough, augh, eigh, igh.

But why have we got these stupid looking and sounding words and how the hell do you remember which ending to use?

It's all to do with the history of gh. These are very old Anglo-Saxon words and we used to pronounce the gh like the Scottish loch daughter, bought...

But then the French invaded and added a g the h to reflect the 'hard' h sound.
Then the gh changed into a 'f' sound or became silent.

We leave the gh in there to show the origins and history of the world.

-ough has seven sounds read these Have you thought this through thoroughly enough?
Sometimes the gh at the end is silent sometimes ales a f sound. No rules not his one.

oo - /too/ through
off - /coff/ cough trough
uff - /cuff/enough, rough, tough
oh -/toe/dough, though, although,
ow - /how/ bough
u - /uh, up/ borough, thorough
or - /or/ bought, brought, fought, nought, ought, sought, wrought, thought


-augh normally sounds like /or/ - door/nor daughter /dort a/, naughty, slaughter, taught, haughty
but laugh is pronounced with a long or short 'a' laff or larff

-eigh normally sounds like /ay/ - say, day eight, neighbour, weigh, weight, sleigh but height rhymes with bite!!

-igh sounds like i in tie high, sigh, thigh, light, delight, sight, might, night, right, tight, flight


For more info on English spelling go to my website howtospell.co.uk
Go on the Games page and do the letter pattern quizzes and wordsearch



Thanks to Joy Pollock's Signposts to Spelling