pronouncekit

SOUND LESSON

How to pronounce /ɔ/ and /ɔː/: the vowel in thought

Round your lips and lift the back of your tongue for the vowel in thought and law. Understand the cot-caught merger and regional variation.

/ɔ/ and /ɔː/
American English
/ɔ/ · monophthong · open-mid · back · rounded
British English
/ɔː/ · monophthong · long · open-mid · back · rounded
Pronunciation model

Try it in a word

We walk to the small door.

Mouth & tongue

Enable JavaScript to view the 3D panda. Pronunciation steps remain available below.

Vocal folds: vibrating

TongueTeethUvula

Simplified human pronunciation. The small uvula hangs from the palate; it is not the vocal folds. The wave indicates voicing.

Voice settings

The mouth starts slightly open. Movement is slowed for observation; the synthetic sound plays once at its original speed. Pause holds the current mouth shape; reset returns to the relaxed position. The panda is a symbolic teaching aid for human pronunciation, not animal anatomy.

What your mouth is doing

The lips round and the tongue sits back, with the jaw moderately open. British references write /ɔː/, a long rounded vowel, and American references often /ɔ/. Quality does not glide.

Comparing with Mandarin and Spanish

Many North American speakers pronounce cot and caught the same; this merger is widespread and not a mistake. If your model keeps them separate, use more rounding for caught.

Spanish o and Mandarin o can help you find the rounding, but Mandarin ao glides and this vowel should stay still.

Build the sound, step by step

  1. Round your lips and open your jaw moderately.
  2. Hold the vowel in law steadily, without moving toward /ʊ/.
  3. Say walk with a silent l, then thought and door.

What to watch for

  • Adding a glide turns law toward low. Keep the lips and tongue still.
  • Reading au and aw as /au/ follows other languages. Here, they represent one vowel.

Hear the difference in your own voice

Practice caught and coat, then law and low. Keep the first word in each pair steady, and let the second glide. If your accent separates cot and caught, compare those as well.

Compare these sounds

Keep practicing

References & editorial notes

PronounceKit wrote this lesson as practical guidance. The references below describe the sounds; the comparisons with other languages are editorial teaching suggestions. It describes common American and British patterns, not every accent, and it has not been independently reviewed by a pronunciation specialist. The mouth model is a simplified teaching aid, not a validated simulation.

Published 3 November 2026