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None of the above. No one pronounces "aw" like the a in Apple. And most people do dinstinguish between "a" and "aw" by pronouncing the latter more like the a in "awe".



Right I’m just confused how you would pronounce it. Because I would almost certainly default to saying pa like “awe”.


There is a favourite old joke of mine that depends heavily on this pronunciation:

    A dog limps into a bar. The barman looks at him and say "What can I do you for?" and  
    the dog replies "I'm a looking for the man that shot my pa".


"pa" would be pronounced between these two, depending on speaker:

/pɑː/ — if I had to use "normal person's IPA", "pah" would be my attempt. This, to me, is the more common pronunciation. Should rhyme with "bra" … assuming you pronounce that like I do.

/pɔː/ — like "paw" or "awe". This is a region-specific dialect, to me. This appears to be the one you're familiar with.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English for a chart.


ESL speaker here, "pa" like in "parking"


Merriam-Webster at least gives one of two possible pronunciations for “pa” as identical to “paw.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pa

Relevant for the US.




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