Cover of the textbook New Headway Upper-Intermediate - Workbook

The key answer of exercise 1

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 11 - Pronunciation for the textbook New Headway Upper-Intermediate - Workbook with authors Liz Soars, John Soars and Paul Hancock from Oxford University Press

Question

There are several different ways of pronouncing the spelling ea. Look at the examples in the chart below and put the words into the correct column.

Answer

  • /e/ = bread, jealous, leapt, breath, thread, breadth, deaf, health, meant, death, lead (n), weapon, breakfast
  • /iː/ = meat, beast, heal, lead (v), breathe, reason, scream, cheat, leap, tea, beans
  • /ɪə/ = fear, dear, hear, clear, tear (n), beard, theatre, weary, gear
  • /eə/ = wear, swear, tear (v), bear, pear
  • /eɪ/ = break, steak, great
  • /ɜː/ = learn, pearl, earth, search