Lingua inglese 1 - Homophones

Homophones

Words which are pronounced in the same way but which are spelt differently are called homophones. Since there is no one-to-one sound/spelling relationship in English, homophones are very common. The difference in spelling usually lies in the vowel sound. Studying homophones can give us an insight into how letters and sound can be related.

Examples of homophones

Look at the following list of examples of homophones and see if you can notice any patterns in the phonetic and graphic representation.

/ɪ/

• Gild/guild
• Gilt/guilt
• Him/hymn
• In/inn
• Missed/mist
• Which/witch

/iː/

• Be/bee
• Beech/beach
• Bean/been
• See/sea
• Flea/flee
• Grease/Greece
• Key/quay
• Leak/leek
• Leased/least
• Meat/meet
• Peace/piece
• Scene/seen
• Steal/steel
• Suite/sweet
• Weak/week
• We'd/weed
• We'll/wheel
• Heal/heel/he'll
• Seas/sees/seize

/æ/

• Cannon/canon
• Manner/manor
• Packed/pact
• Practise/practice
• Rap/wrap

/e/

• Bread/bred
• bury/berry
• Guessed/guest
• Lead/led
• Leant/lent
• Weather/whether
• Cent/scent/sent
• Check/Czech/cheque

/ʌ/

• One/won
• None/nun
• Some/sum
• Sun/son

/u/

• Wood/would

/ɑː/

• Alms/arms
• Aren't/aunt
• Calves/carves
• Draft/draught
• Father/farther
• Passed/past

/ɒ/ /ɔː/

• Knot/not

/ɔː/

• Board/bored
• Boar/bore
• Border/boarder
• Born/borne
• Caught/court
• Coarse/course
• Flaw/floor
• Fort/fought