Though, Thought, Tough, Through, Thorough - 5 Confusing English Words

Though, Thought, Tough, Through, Thorough - 5 Confusing English Words There are a few problems that seem to consistently come up in my English classes. One of these is confusion among the words Though, Thought, Tough, Through and Thorough.The problem usually comes up when we are reading a lesson together, and we come across one of the words. Students will often get to a word like tough and say the word thought or though.There are two reasons why these words are difficult. First of all, they look a lot alike. Youve basically got the letter t (and sometimes r), surrounding the letter combination ough in slightly different arrangements.Secondly, the letter combination ough makes a different sound depending on the word.Though sounds sort of like thow, thought sounds like thawt, tough sounds like tuff, through sounds like threw, and thorough sounds like therrow. It turns out that the letter combination ough is one of the most unpredictable in the English language, with 6 to 10 possible sounds they can make, depending on the dialect.Honestly, thinking about it makes me wonder how native  English speakers dont get confused by them. Especially though, tough and thought. They look almost exactly the same, but make completely different sounds!Yet somehow we never get them confused, without ever having to think about it.So what do you do if youre someone who is trying to learn English? Im not sure theres an easy way to fix this problem. Even my most advanced students make mistakes with these words.My suggestion for now is to be aware of the ough letter combination, and when you come across it, pay careful attention to the context. Luckily, each of these words have very different meanings, and its highly unlikely that the word tough can be substituted for the word thought in a sentence.Want to keep learning? Read our guides to English idioms or English phrasal verbs. ilias thanks Ric Thanks a lot, really helped me LOIEnglish Awesome! Karen Bartels You could add the word trough to your list. Lin Andre Nathan Soo, how can this article hel p me? Grammar nazis? LOIEnglish It isnt about the grammar but more the pronunciation. The pronunciation for these words is unique in each word and can cause a great deal of confusion if you mispronounce them using the wrong sounds. Guest Could you please show us an example? Duncan B See guys, English is tough language, BUT, it can be solved through tough thorough thought though Sorry LOIEnglish Ha! Very good. fargok Lovely. Adrián González If you said but, why would you use though later in the sentence? LOIEnglish Youre right that it isnt grammatically correct however though is often used at the end of speech as an afterthought, similar to .well. For example: I like the red shoes but not the black.though.they might work with the purple dress. Thiago Dos Santos Leite Awesome! I do too mainly when Im writing ?? Andika Maulana lieur aing ?? i dont feel so good