M

M is a consonant and normally pronounced as it is written. 

It is pronounced as written in words like male, mother, muffin, come, ramp, simmer, dormitory, drum, scam.

Like all others, one m is silent when two of them are together, like mummy, summer, rummy.

A sentence using M pronunciations –

“Marrying the right woman makes a man complete.” No comment please.

N

N is a consonant and it has three different pronunciations:

/ŋ/ which is always followed by ‘g’, like bang, long, sing, dung.

N when silent like in column, hymn, solemn, etc. It is also silent when two are written together, like annual,  sunny, connotation.

N when pronounced like name, noon, main, mint,  minister, snow.

Example of N variations –

Nuns consider it their solemn duty to care for their patients. Failing this is taken as a serious lapse.

O

O is a vowel and like other vowels, it too has many pronunciations. When it is pronounced as a diphthong  the lips  are rounded and it sounds like ‘ow’ in the UK and ‘ao’ in the US. The different pronunciations are detailed below:

As a diphthong ‘o’ in ocean, know, golden, globe, home.

As /ᴐ/ in blossom, clock, hot, spot, optical.

As long /ᴐ :/ in order, cork, border, caught.

As /ǝ/ in other, mother, philosophy,, world, word, worth.

As /u/ in foot, look, wolf, woman.

As /u:/ in food, soot, loose, lose, ooze, pool.

As /i/ in women.

In the words like cotton or mutton, ‘o’ is silent and the ‘n’ does the work of a vowel.

A paragraph to get all the variations of O –

I often wonder what makes women so strong. They cook food, look into their children’s homework, stitch buttons broken from their cotton clothes, prepare the tiffin boxes, and do all the household work. Some of them are office goers, and while they may have domestic help, they are still responsible for everything that happens in the household. Hats off to the women folk.’

Q

Q is a consonant and most often it is accompanied with letter ‘u’. OUP lists only four words without ‘u’ and sometimes this ‘u’ is pronounced, and sometimes it is silent.

Sometimes ‘q’ is not found with a ‘u’, like in the following: Qatar (name of a gulf country,) Qatari (a person from Qatar) , Qintar (name of Albanian currency), and Qawwali (a devotional song of Muslims).

‘Q’ is followed by a pronounced ‘u’  in words like quail, quality, quench, queen, quest, sequence, eloquence.

‘Q’ is followed by a silent ‘u’ in words like technique, quote, soliloquy, racquet.

Q variations in a sentence –

In ancient Qatar, the queen had queer habits. She used to quench her thirst with wine while listening to Qawaalis. She had summoned some Qatari men and trained them in techniques of different types of wine-making.

P

P is a consonant. Like T and K, P also adds aspiration and sounds like  the ‘ph’ of Hindi at the beginning of the words, e.g /phᴐt/ for pot, /pheipǝr/ for paper,/phen/ for pen, etc. This peculiarity is found only in spoken language.

P is silent at the beginning of many words like psychology, pneumonia, pneumatic. It is also silent in the  middle of a word like receipt or when it occurs with another P  like happy, supper, copper, rapport.

P is pronounced like the Hindi ph in words like pit, pet, pat, and Penelope (a girl’s name).

Examples of P in other places: laptop, moped, creeper, hyper, sapling, soap, stop, slap.

A sentence using variations of P –

Paul is a good psychologist. He is very punctual and his patients are very happy with him. As a psychologist, he is very patient with them. They open up to him and tell him their problems without any inhibitions. He is reliable and their secrets are safe with him. And yes, he issues proper receipts for all their payments.

R

R is a consonant. In this, ‘r’ is pronounced by raising the tip of the tongue to and vibrating it without touching the alveolus. The air going out vibrates the rolled and raised tip of the tongue. In the US, R is rolled against the alveolus, that is why one can hear it but the British people seem to lengthen the vowel before it is said. In the initial place, people round their lips, roll the tongue, and vibrate it.

Examples of R –

The ball rolled round the rugged road. 

A river is a small stream in the beginning. In the plains, it is a wide river. It is wider when it meets the sea. All the civilizations grew on the river bank. They were born, flourished, and died by the side of the river bank.