Words with the same pronunciation
There are many words in English that are pronounced the same but spelled differently. The following pairs of words are explained at separate entries in this book because they are often confused:
bass - base, bear - bare, born - borne, break - brake, cereal - serial, chord - cord, complement - compliment, council - counsel, curb - kerb, currant - current, die - dye, draught - draft, fair - fare, here - hear, pore - pour, principal - principle, role - roll, sow - sew, stationary - stationery, there - their, waist - waste, whether - weather
The entries are usually at the pairs of words given above, but see entries at there and whether for information about words pronounced like these words.
Note that `paw' is pronounced the same as `pore' and `pour', and `poor' is also often pronounced the same. `So' is pronounced the same as `sew' and `sow'.
There are many other pairs of words with the same pronunciation. Some of the commonest ones are listed below.
altar - alter, berry - bury, blew - blue, boar - bore, bough - bow, bread - bred, bridal - bridle, caught - court, cell - sell, coarse - course, core - corps, creak - creek, cue - queue, cymbal - symbol, dear - deer, dew - due, earn - urn, feat - feet, fir - fur, flaw - floor, flea - flee, flour - flower, fort - fought, foul - fowl, gorilla - guerrilla, grate - great, hair - hare, hangar - hanger, heal - heel, heard - herd, heroin - heroine, hoarse - horse, hole - whole, key - quay, knead - need, knew - new, knight - night, knot - not, know - no, lain - lane, leak - leek, lessen - lesson, loan - lone, made - maid, mail - male, main - mane, maize - maze, medal - meddle, miner - minor, moan - mown, morning - mourning, naval - navel, none - nun, one - won, packed - pact, pain - pane, peace - piece, peal - peel, pedal - peddle, peer - pier, place - plaice, plain - plane, pole - poll, pray - prey, profit - prophet, raise - raze, rap - wrap, raw - roar, retch - wretch, ring - wring, road - rode, root - route, sail - sale, sauce - source, scene - seen, sea - see, seam - seem, shear - sheer, sole - soul, some - sum, son - sun, stair - stare, stake - steak, stalk - stork, steal - steel, storey - story, tail - tale, tear - tier, threw - through, throne - thrown, toe - tow, too - two, vain - vein, wail - whale, wait - weight, war - wore, warn - worn, way - weigh, weak - week, which - witch, whine - wine
Note that the verb `read' has the same pronunciation as `reed', but its past form, also spelled `read', has the same pronunciation as `red'.
The noun `lead' has the same pronunciation as `led', the past form of the verb `lead'.
There are also the following groups of words which are pronounced the same:
awe - oar - ore, buy - by - bye, cent - scent - sent, cite - sight - site, flew - flu - flue, meat - meet - mete, pair - pare - pear, peak - peek - pique, rain - reign - rein, rite - right - write, saw - soar - sore, ware - wear - where
(c) HarperCollins Publishers.
这是单词“ｃｕｅ”的克林斯字典的一段话，说明了同音不同字的问题，除此之外还有同字不同音的问题，这不只是英语才有的现象，我们的中文同样有同音不同字和同字不同音的现象。
所有这些都是语言本身的问题。另外语音本身没有的问题，就是不同语音之间的文字和语音不同的问题，所以你才需要学习外语，不然不同的语言采用相同的文字的语音，还需要学习什么外语？
另外一个问题，就是所有这些字典规范的语音和磁带语音不相同的问题，这是一种语言内部的问题，我们的中文也同样存在，但是我们为什么可以听懂中文，就是因为我们已经将真实语音和文字已经合成到一起了的原因。
