Learn to pronounce the words ROUGH and RUFF with this American English Homophone Pronunciation Lesson. Both of these words are pronounced the same way.

Definitions:

ROUGH means not smooth or not gentle.

RUFF is what a dog says or a lace collar.

Pronunciation:

These words are pronounced RUF or /rʌf/.

Sentence:

The dog yelled ruff when it stepped on the rough ground.

This may be helpful:

HOMOPHONES – words spelled differently but pronounced the same 

Transcript:

Hi there Jennifer from Tarle speech with your two for Tuesday. We have two words that are spelled differently but they are pronounced the same. So these two words are spelled differently, have different meanings, and are pronounced the same way.

Our two words today are:

rough meaning not smooth or not gentle and
rough what a dog says in the united states or what I learned from googling it could also mean a lace collar.

Who knew? I did not know!

So here are the words: rough and ruff.

So to say these words correctly, you have three little sounds. Start with that r rrr. To do this square tense lips. The tip of your tongue is either pointed down or flipped back. It is not touching your teeth and it is not moving. It just stays in the same place. The back of your tongue is pulled high up and is tense in the back of your mouth er.

Next relax your mouth for that short uh sound. Tongue is just flat in your mouth.

And then we’re going to end with the f to do this think about gently biting the inside or outside of your bottom lip with your top teeth. F FFFF

You don’t really bite, but your teeth get really really close. That’s just kind of a good way to think about it. And for that f sound you are going to think about touching your top teeth to your bottom lip.

You still need to have your lips open. If your lips close, it’s going to sound like a p, and we don’t want that. We want that air to keep moving out.

Let’s put it all together

rough ruff
rough ruff
rough ruff

And now for a sentence:

The dog yelled ruff when it stepped on the rough ground.

So give it a try I know people are going to notice the difference. And if you have a minute, please tell me what does a dog say in your language? I always love to hear what animals say in different languages!

So if you found this helpful, please give us a like and a share. Don’t forget to subscribe and if you need help please check us out at Tarle speech.com.

Thanks so much everyone have a great week!