Minimal Pair List Vowels 17 and 19, / aʊ / versus / eə / 33 pairs

The / aʊ / diphthong is spelled <ow> or <ou>. The / eə / diphthong is spelled <air> or <are>.

This is a contrast between two diphthongs with differences in starting position, direction of movement and lip-rounding. It is not a problem for any learner.

Interesting pairs include:

foully fairly

The density figure is 3.43%. The set makes 19 semantic contrasts giving a loading of 57.6%.

blouse blares 
bough bare
  boughs bares 
bough bear
  boughs bears
bow bare
  bows bares
  bowed bared 
bow bear
  bows bears      
chow chair
  chows chairs 
cow care
  cowed cared 
  cows cares
dhow dare
  dhows dares 
foully fairly 
house hairs 
loud laird 
Maori Mary
mow mare
  mows mares 
noun Nairn 
prow prayer
  prows prayers 
scow scare
  scows scares 
spouse spares 
wow ware
  wows wares 
wow wear
  wows wears  

John Higgins

John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials. His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.